EASIT: Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training
This is unit 1, Media accessibility;
element 4, What is media accessibility?;
video lecture "Media accessibility standards".
I am Anna Matamala, from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
In this short lecture I will be talking
about some of the main media accessibility standards.
A standard is a document approved by a recognised standardization body
which is established by consensus.
Standards define requirements for products and services
so that they are safe, reliable and of good quality.
Standards should not be confused
with legislation or with recommendations and guidelines.
Standards are pre-requisites for laws,
but they are not laws.
Standards need to be approved by standardization bodies,
so a series of guidelines proposed by another organization
are not standards.
At international level, standardization bodies include ISO
(International Standardisation Organisation),
IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission)
and the UN agency ITU
(International Telecommunication Union).
At European level, the European Standards Organisations
are CEN (European Committee for Standardisation),
CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation)
and ETSI
(European Telecommunication Standards Institute).
At national level, each country has its standardization agency,
so please check which one you have in your country.
I would like here to refer to a few relevant standards
for media accessibility.
I will start with EN301 549,
which is a harmonised European standard
that establishes accessibility requirements
for ICT products and services.
It was prepared pursuant
to a Commission's standardization request
to provide one voluntary means
of conforming to the essential requirements
of the Web Accessibility Directive.
It was produced by ETSI technical committee Human Factors
and the e-accessibility joint coworking group
of CEN-CENELEC-ETSI.
In its 2019 updated version adopts W3C WCAG 2.1. guidelines
for web content, electronic document and non-web software
such as mobile applications.
The document considers that ability impairments
may be permanent, temporary or situational,
and any person, regardless of physical,
cognitive or sensory abilities,
needs to be able to locate, identify and operate ICT functions
and to access the information provided.
This is why it considers that usage should be possible
in the following conditions:
without vision,
with limited vision,
without perception of colour,
without hearing,
with limited hearing,
without vocal capability,
with limited manipulation or strength,
with limited reach,
with limited cognition
and minimising photosensitive seizure triggers,
maintaining the user's privacy at all times.
The document sets a list of specific requirements
that I invite you to read.
It is worth highlighting that the document
refers to captioning (or subtitling) and audio description
as necessary alternatives to time-based media.
Time-based media refers to film, video, audios or digital works
that unfold over a period of time.
Another relevant standard is EN 17161
"Design for All. Accessibility following a Design for All approach
in products, goods and services – Extending the range of users".
It was developed by the CEN-CENELEC joint technical committee 12
in response to the European Commission standardisation request
through Mandate/473.
This standard includes requirements
that can allow an organisation to design,
develop and provide products, goods and services
that can be accessed,
understood and used by the widest range of users
including persons with disabilities.
ISO has also developed a series of standards on accessibility
as part of ISO/IEC JTC1/Subcomittee 35:
ISO/IEC TS 200071-21 Information technology –
User interface component accessibility
– Part 21:
Guidance on audio description.
It is a 24-page long technical specification that describes
how the different types of audio description should be created.
It deals with aspects such as the styles of narration,
the levels of importance
and how to describe relevant sounds and text on screen.
Guidance is offered on how to describe specific elements
(objects, characters, spatio-temporal settings, etc.).
ISO/IEC TS 20071-25:2017 Information technology –
User interface component accessibility.
Part 25: Guidance on the audio presentation of text in videos,
including captions, subtitles and other on-screen text.
This is a 12-page technical specification published in 2017
that provides guidance on how on-screen text (including subtitles)
can be transmitted auditorily.
Put briefly, it is a standard for audio subtitles and audio text.
ISO/IEC DIS 200071-23 Information technology –
User interface component accessibility –
Part 23: Guidance on the visual presentation of audio information
(including captions and subtitles).
This is an international standard on subtitles,
but does not deal with the translation process.
It addresses the visual design of subtitles
and how speech and non-speech information
(for instance, sound effects, paralinguistic elements,
music, emotions, silence, etc.)
is transferred into the subtitles.
It also provides advice on how to identify speakers
and how to evaluate the quality of the subtitles.
It is very important to highlight that ISO has joined forces
with the ITU group specializing in media accessibility,
which is named
Intersector Rapporteur Group on Audiovisual Media,
IRG-AVA for short.
I would also like to draw your attention to a report
authored by ITU and the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs
published in 2011 on "Making Television Accessible".
Although things have evolved since then,
it offers a wide overview of how audiovisual content
can be made more accessible.
To conclude, I would like to mention
that standards on easy and plain language
are being currently developed,
sometimes relating them to audiovisual media,
but this will be the topic of another video.
For now, I would suggest that you do some research
and try to find if there are any standards
related to media accessibility
that have been developed
by your national standardization agency.
This video lecture has been prepared by Anna Matamala,
from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
You can reach me at anna.matamala@uab.cat.
Pictures.
Source: pixabay.com, pexels.com.
License: Pixabay License, Pexels License.
The project EASIT has received funding
from the European Commission
under the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships
for Higher Education programme,
grant agreement 2018-1-ES01-KA203-05275.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication
does not constitute an endorsement of the contents,
which reflect the views only of the authors,
and the Commission cannot be held responsible
for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Partners of the EASIT project:
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,
Università degli Studi di Trieste,
Universidade de Vigo,
Stiftung Universität Hildesheim,
SDI München,
Dyslexiförbundet,
Radiotelevisija Slovenija,
Zavod Risa.
EASIT: Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training