Generic Digital Information Accessibility Requirements
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Paper written for the BBC Research and Development Department, Surrey, UK
Date: 29/11/2005
Article
1. General
1.1 All citizens should have a right of access to all digital information in the public domain on equal, transparent terms; in the case of those who are disabled such a right of access should be to information in as nearly an equivalent form as the authored original where that original is not directly accessible to them.
1.2 Such information as is placed in the public domain, free or for a declared price, which has been funded in any way, directly or indirectly, through taxation, should meet four fundamental criteria which will contribute substantially to accessibility; it should:
- Be created multimodally (to include graphics, text and audio)
- Enable user interface choice
- Enable customisation and simplification
- Be facilitated at every stage of delivery (creation, transmission and reception)
1.3 All public sector digital information providers must adhere to all the provisions of 1.1 in all their publishing and broadcasting.
1.4 The public sector should stipulate the extent to which digital information providers must comply with the conditions of 1.1 under the terms of any licence or permit to publish or broadcast; this stipulation must be a concrete entity, stated as a percentage of output, together with any specific genre exceptions.
1.5 The rights contained in 1.1 should take priority over any copyright law as long as the end user or a trusted intermediary makes an undertaking equivalent to that of the general user in respect of copyright. In judging any case which involves a dispute between a disabled person and a rights holder in respect of accessibility, an adjudicator must take into account the degree to which the holder has provided material which adheres to the principles in 1.2 above.
2. Deaf and Hearing Impaired Access through Sub-Titling
2.1 As one element of the implementation of the principles in 1.1 those who are deaf or hearing impaired should be provided with access to as complete as possible a textual and graphical representation of audio content.
2.2 The text component of sub-titling should:
- Be based on a verbatim transcript of the whole audio text, together with descriptions of non verbal sound, which the user can customise to varying percentages of the whole script or that part of the script which the producer has provided in the case of linear product where the transcript would exceed 180 words per minute (@ x words per minute)
- Distinguish between voices
- Be displayed as a default that can be removed with a single cancelling instruction
- Be available as frame-matched captions or scrolling text
- Default as Tiresias but be customisable in respect of font, size and colour
- Be synchronised with the frame sequence except where the user wishes to freeze a frame to access text over-runs in non linear products
- Be available in languages specified by the licence or contract
2.3 The graphical component of audio representation should:
- Comprise a standard, recognised library of pictographs.
3. Deaf and Hearing Impaired access through Signing
3.1 As one element of the implementation of the principles in 1.1 those who are deaf or hearing impaired should be provided with access to as complete as possible a signed representation of audio content.
3.2 The signing of audio material should:
- Seek to provide a verbatim account of the whole audio text, together with descriptions of non verbal sound
- Be displayed as a default that can be removed with a single cancelling instruction or be provided as a 'closed' service
- Be available in a sign language or languages agreed as a condition of the contract or licence for the product.
4. Learning, Cognitive and Developmental difficulties Access through Simplification
4.1 As one element of the implementation of the principles in 1.1 those who experience learning, cognitive or developmental disabilities (or those for whom the written and/or audio components of a product are not in their first language) should be provided with access to customisable text so that it can be lexicographically and syntactically customised. Tools should be provided that can:
- Simplify text to a choice of ‘reading ages'
- Substitute simple, common words
- Parse and remove subordinate clauses.
5. Blind and Visually Impaired Access through Audio and Video Description
5.1 As one element of the implementation of the principles in 1.1 those who are blind or visually impaired should be provided with access to as complete as possible an audio representation of visual content.
5.2 The Audio Description should:
- Provide descriptions of visual material during silences in the dialogue or commentary of a product at approximately 2.5 words per second
- Be displayed as a default that can be removed with a single cancelling instruction or be provided as a 'closed' service
5.2 The video description component should:
- Render on-screen text in audio.