Re: Publishing Accessible Presentations - reply by Wednesday 31 March]

Thanks for the comments, Andrew. Replies below.

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: Publishing Accessible Presentations - reply by Wednesday 31 
> March
> Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:21:56 +0100
> From: Andrew Arch <andrew@w3.org>
> To: Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org>
> References: <4B9AE76F.5050509@w3.org> <4BAD5F30.6030402@w3.org>
> 
> Hi Shawn,
> 
> A few comments:
> 
> # Status
> - on Contacting Organizations about Inaccessible Websites, we included a
> status box at the bottom of the page. I suggest something similar for
> this document.

Great! done.

> # Planning
> - in two points you refer to "interpreters". I suggest this become "sign
> language interpreters" to be completely clear. Unless we intended to
> include other language issues that don't seem to have been raised 
> elsewhere.

Actually, they previously did say "sign language interpreters" and that was changed to cover other interpreters, including ASL, SEE, PSE, Cued Speech, oral, etc. See [1] below.

Note that we have "sign language interpreter" in the basics section at the top. If we change that, we might need to say something like "sign language interpreters and others" - but that's kinda awkward.

> # During
> - use a Microphone; for the Europeans and Australians consider changing
> to "including people using ALDs, hearing induction loops, and remote
> CART writers"

ok.

> Andrew

[1]
> There are a few comments I would like to add about event accessibility.
> 
> Cued speech transliterators and oral interpreters are also important to 
> those who rely on spoken English. While oral deaf/hh people can read 
> CART and it is easy to use for them to use it for "one-way" information 
> such as lectures and meetings with little or no participation or in 
> "two-way" conversations if they feel comfortable using their voice that 
> is well understood by hearing people, it is not always easy for some of 
> those who need assistance in voicing for them in highly interactive 
> discussions due to some delay in CART and also not all CART writers can 
> understand voices of deaf people. I know a lot of deaf/hh people who are 
> native cuers and complain to me that they are forced to use sign 
> language interpreters instead of cued speech transliterators for 
> conversations because sign language is not their native language and 
> also sign language interpreters often misinterpret their signs into 
> English. Cued speech transliterators convert cues into speech more 
> accurately than sign language interpreters and any words from simple to 
> most advanced that cannot be translated well into sign language. It is 
> not because sign language interpreters are bad (though some may be), but 
> it is the nature of sign language that gives "meaning for meaning" 
> information while cued speech gives more of "verbatim" info like CART. 
> For example, a deaf person wants to say "I produce", but an ASL 
> interpreter would say "I make" because it's how they see in sign (it may 
> also mean other words such as "create", "manufacture", etc.) It would be 
> like when I think in English, but communicate with another English 
> speaker via a French interpreter - it would create more confusion 
> because the meaning is lost in translation. Even some culturally Deaf 
> people (who are also bilingual in English) feel frustrated with sign 
> language interpreters sometimes when catching them by lipreading that 
> they don't voice for them the exact words they wanted to say. It is hard 
> to pick up signs for advanced vocabulary and most of it have to be 
> fingerspelled.
> 
> Here's more details about many various accessibility issues experienced 
> by 95% of people with hearing loss who are oral and use English as 
> primary language:
> http://www.hearinglossweb.com/Issues/Identity/ohl/nat/nat.htm
> 
> As for using CART, from what I read in the following page - it is not a 
> recommendation, but a requirement by the Title III of the ADA law:
> http://www.nad.org/issues/education/other-opportunities/access-to-events
> 
> "The U.S. Department of Justice has defined the term "auxiliary aids and 
> services" for deaf and hard of hearing individuals to include qualified 
> interpreters.  28 C.F.R. § 36.303(b)(1).  The term "auxiliary aids and 
> services" also includes amplification, assistive listening systems, oral 
> interpreters, captioning, and other methods of making aurally delivered 
> material available to persons who are deaf or hard-of-hearing."
> 
> "The Department of Justice urges consultation with persons with 
> disabilities, to ascertain the appropriate auxiliary aids or services."
> 
> As for "interpreters" it would mean all types - ASL, SEE, PSE, Cued 
> Speech, oral, etc.

I changed "sign language interpreter" to "interpreters" in 2 places to cover these as well.

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Received on Wednesday, 31 March 2010 17:14:12 UTC