Action ITem - Background sounds

At the teleconf call it was pointed out that it looked unbalanced to ask
that background images be removable but not background sounds (at the upper
levels)

 

It was pointed out the guidelines was "text presented over graphics" . 

 

With sound, the speech is not mixed with the background by the author.  So
it would not be possible to turn off the background sounds from any speech
unless the speech was in a separate sound track than the background sounds.
In that case they would be removable anyway.   So it was determined that
requiring that speech be separated from background sounds would make all
mixed audio presentations (including all movies, animations, live broadcasts
etc) might be prohibited.  

 

 

Our decision was therefore to not put requirements in the higher levels for
speech to be separable from background sound - nor to require that there be
specific separation between speech and background.    There are captions
that can be used for those who can see and cannot hear well. 


We also decided to add a note in the benefits section to reflect this
difference. I took an action item to try to do this.  My attempt is below.

 

 

 

1.5    Benefit

 

#2  Speech over background sounds

 

    Because speech is often naturally mixed with background sounds (movies,
live news etc) and cannot be easily removed or separated, captions are
provided (under checkpoint guideline 1.2)  to make dialog understandable.
However not all people can see or read the captions.  Where speech is mixed
or recorded so that it is at least 20 db above any background sounds people
do not need to rely on captions to understand the dialog.

 

 

 

 

 


Gregg

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------------------------

Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D. 
Professor - Human Factors 
Depts of Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center 
University of Wisconsin-Madison 
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