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Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) viewers watch multimedia with captions on devices with widely varying widths. We investigated the impact of caption width on viewers' preferences. Previous research has shown that presenting one word lines allows viewers to read much more quickly than traditional reading, while others have shown that the optimal width for captions is 6 words per line. Our study showed that DHH viewers had no preference difference between 6 and 12 word lines. Furthermore, they significantly preferred 6 and 12 word lines over single word lines due to the need to split attention between the captions and video. 

In this experience report, we describe the accessibility challenges that deaf and hard of hearing users face in teleconferences, based on both our first-hand participation in meetings, and as User Interface and Experience experts. Teleconferencing poses new accessibility challenges compared to face-to-face communication because of limited social, emotional, and haptic feedback. Above all, teleconferencing participants and organizers need to be flexible, because deaf or hard of hearing people have diverse communication preferences. We explain what recurring problems users experience, where current teleconferencing software falls short, and how to address these shortcomings. We offer specific recommendations for best practices and the experiential reasons behind them. 

Automatic subtitles are widely used for subtitling television and online videos. Some include punctuation while others do not. Our study with 21 participants watching subtitled videos found that viewers reported that punctuation improves the “readability” experience for deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing viewers, regardless of whether it was generated via ASR or humans. Given that automatic subtitles have become widely integrated into online video and television programs, and that nearly 20% of television viewers in US or UK use subtitles, there is evidence that supports punctuation in subtitles has the potential to improve the viewing experience for a significant percentage of the all television viewers, including people who are deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing. 

Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) individuals do not have equal access to audio information in most educational settings, even with visual translation accommodations such as sign language interpreters or captioners. As a result, their learning and retention rates lag behind in comparison with their hearing peers. Research shows DHH individuals lose lecture information due to two main factors largely unaddressed by the traditional accommodations: 1) increased cognitive load associated with processing the visual translation of audio simultaneously with other visual information sources, and 2) visual attention limits associated with viewing layouts that have widely dispersed visuals that may be far away or at awkward viewing angles. We discuss the impact of architectural visuals on the DHH student, accommodation team and discuss an automatic measure of a simple accessibility app and scale using face and body identification from a 360-degree video snapshot.