Object-Based Media and Accessibility
Posted by Michael Armstrong on , last updated
is a major theme of our work at ±«Óãtv R&D and we are always on the look-out for opportunities to explore the ways in which it can create new experiences and enhance people's enjoyment of them. So the in October last year gave us an opportunity to explore ways of exploring the challenges of accessibility of media experiences beyond the mainstream TV services of subtitles, audio description and signing. The conference was held at the Department of Theatre, Film and Television at the University of York and was organised by as part of her project on
I teamed up with from and we ran to explore the issues of designing for accessibility. It was a quick, opportunistic exercise, drawing on the expertise of conference attendees to build awareness of OBM amongst people working on accessibility.
Image based on Robert Gordon University postcards.
The workshop began with a brief introduction to the aims of the workshop and the concept of Object Based Media showing the example of the . and () also introduced their work on an .
We asked people to write down accessibility issues not currently addressed by subtitles and audio description, which might be met through OBM with a particular emphasis on cognitive difficulties as these are not currently served in any way. These were then divided areas of Vision, Communication, Physical and Cognitive, mapping to the topics from Robert Gordon University postcards and placed on one of four boards in the room.
Once we had all the items on the boards we then asked our participants to read through each other’s accessibility challenges and suggest ways in which these accessibility needs might be met.
Inevitably in a conference largely on the topics of Audio Description and subtitles the problems with vision, reading and hearing were raised by many people. The solutions around the substitution of one modality for another, text for hearing and speech for vision were suggested along with adaption of the sound and images to remove unnecessary “clutter”, removing distractions or allowing key components of the media to have more bandwidth.
The problem of multiple impairments came up a number of times. Difficulties with hearing, eyesight and motor control are often experienced together with increasing age and there are many deaf/blind people who are not served by subtitles & AD. For these groups, modal substitution is more problematic and solutions might need to include haptic devices including Braille displays. This brings in the use of additional devices along with the need for synchronisation .
Shared experiences were also raised. How can a shared experience like watching TV work for people with very different needs without imposing intrusive solutions on people like wearing headphones or headsets which are antagonistic to the essence spending time together?
An increasing number of devices comes an increasing number of interfaces to cope with. The issue of the difficulties people have with many modern interfaces were noted along with the need for ones that adapt to people’s needs and the usefulness of voice control rather than remotes.
Cognitive challenges cited included the emotional impact of media. Trigger stimuli for phobias such as spiders, sudden sounds, and the problems experienced by people with PSTD could be addressed through personalised versioning of content in the same way that films are edited differently for showing at different times of day and for different countries. People on the autism spectrum can experience a number of issues of this type, along with problems of sensory overload or under stimulation. These issues may extend to difficulty understanding emotion and relationships in a drama and face blindness makes it very difficult to keep track of characters in a complex plot.
We are now taking stock of how some of these ideas can inform our OBM work and stimulate more research into user needs.
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This post is part of the Future Experience Technologies section