How Do Deaf People Use The Computer

The use of computers for deaf people is much easier than it is for blind people. Much less accommodations are needed, and every day tasks are mostly available without any assistive technologies. Certain problems, however, do exist, which should be taken into consideration.

In many instances, computers can be used to perform any tasks without having to listen to any sounds, such as sending e-mail messages, editing documents, browsing the internet, or solving math problems. In certain instances, however, the computer responds to actions with sounds, or sounds are used to alert us to certain events. An example is an error message when we hear an annoying sound, or another sound when a new e-mail message arrives. These are sounds that we encounter on a daily basis, and an alternative is needed for deaf people to inform them about the computers message.

There are many people who live with a slight hearing impairment, for those it is perfectly sufficient to turn up the speaker volume. Others, however, are not able to hear any sounds, at all. Any program, which provides information by using any sounds should indicate this information in another, non-audible manner. For example, when a new e-mail message arrives, many applications change the cursor shape, pop-up a window telling the user that there is a new message waiting, etc.

Things become much more complicated when lectures, videos or audio presentations are viewed on the computer. This information requires that people are able to hear and understand the text that is spoken. The only way to make this information accessible to deaf people is to provide a transcript of the information. A transcript itself is the textual form of the spoken text. While it is very helpful, many presentations provide much more sound than spoken text. To take it one step further, captioning was developed, which does not only provide a textual equivalent of the spoken text, but also informs the reader of any other sounds, the speaker, or the intonation of the speech as necessary.

Unfortunately captioning is a very time consuming and costly procedure. In today's world, when it is very easy to create videos and upload them on the internet, it is hard to keep track of all information and to provide an equivalent caption. This is definitely a major inaccessibility problem which is hard to overcome. In most cases, official notices, and audible information provided by public agencies have captioning associated to them. In many countries, it is actually a legal requirement.

Try it yourself: turn off your computer speakers, and continue your daily activities. You will find that you will not have too many difficulties using the computer. Now go to your favorite radio station's web site, and try to listen to it online, still with the speakers turned off. This is what deaf people experience.