Hearing
Deafness
Hearing loss, or decreased auditory acuity, is the reduced ability to perceive sounds. There are two types of hearing loss: conductive hearing loss and sensorineural hearing loss. Presbycusis is the decline in hearing ability due to aging.
- Nature of disability : Congenital and acquired (one child in 1000 is born with a hearing impairment or is screened before the age of two, i.e. 700 children a year)
- Age group concerned : In France, Inserm estimates that deafness affects 6% of 15-24 year olds, and over 65% of those aged 65 and over.
- Number of people affected : 6.6% of the French population (4.09 million people) suffer from hearing loss, 88% of whom have become deaf during their lives 483,000 people with profound or severe hearing loss 600,000 people with hearing loss wear a hearing aid
Symptoms
Mild hearing loss: speech difficult to understand in noisy surroundings
Moderate hearing loss: soft and moderately loud sounds are not audible
Severe hearing loss: conversation in a group is difficult and you have to speak loudly to be heard
Profound hearing loss: communication is impossible without hearing aids, and only a few very loud sounds are perceived by the hearing impaired person.
Examples of obstacles encountered during navigation
- Audio content, such as videos with voices and sounds, without subtitles or transcriptions.
- Media players that do not display subtitles or provide volume controls.
- Media players that do not offer options for adjusting text size, subtitle colours and background colours.
- Automatic subtitles/transcripts containing errors
- Subtitle content that is badly written (e.g. inclusive script, language level too high) or badly transmitted (e.g. too fast)
- Web services, including web applications, that rely on voice-only interaction.
- Lack of sign language to supplement important information and difficult-to-read text
Solutions for accessibility
- Transcriptions and subtitles of audio content, including audio-only content and audio tracks in multimedia;
- Media players that display subtitles and offer options for adjusting text size and subtitle colours;
- Options to stop, pause and adjust the volume of audio content (independent of the system volume);
- High quality foreground audio that is clearly distinguishable from any background noise
- Offer FALC as some deaf people do not have a very good level of French
- Offer alternatives to telephone contact
- Providing important information in sign language and using simpler text complemented by images, graphics and other illustrations helps to make web content more understandable for many people.