The problem:

• People who are deaf cannot access information which is presented in auditory form only.

• People without audio capabilities in their computer also may not have access.

• People who do not have the proper Audio Player Helper application may not be able to play the audio clip.

• People in noisy environments may not be able to hear information presented audibly.

Solution strategies in the future

The problems and solution strategies for audio clips are very similar to those for separate viewer-based graphic elements (Problem Area 2) and movies (Problem Area 4):

• They all use separate players or viewers/windows to present the content.

• Access in the future can be accomplished by allowing text to be stored in the data structure.

• Servers should be able to send the sound format, the text format, or both, on request from the browser.

• Players should be able to present the sound format, the text format, or both formats.

• RealAudio or similar formats should include the ability to simultaneously present the text version of the audio information.

Solutions today

The strategies for accessing sound today also look essentially the same as for graphic files:

Access is provided by having a separate file with a transcript of the speech or description of the sound. This separate file is accessed in one of two ways:

Approach 3-1: (generally recommended)
Place an anchor to a page with a text transcript or description of the sound right next to the anchor for the sound.

Approach 3-2:
If the user has requested a text-only page, replace all URL references to sound with URL references to the text transcript or description.

As before, Approach 3-1 is preferred because it provides the user with more options, allows them to use any residual hearing, and is useful to people with language impairments.

It is often the case that people without disabilities are interested in the text transcripts as well.

Example:
Below is an example based on the White House Web server, courtesy of Paul Fontaine at the General Services Administration. Note that this example includes both ALT-TEXT access to the sound icon (audio.gif) (for users who are using text browsers or screen readers) and the text translation (al_npr_intro.html) of the audio file (gore.au) (for users who cannot hear or do not have audio capabilities on their computers).

Suggested code:

The President asked <A HREF="http://www.ostp.eop.gov/images/raw/al-portrait.gif> <IMG SRC=http://www.ostp.eop.gov/images/small/al-portrait.gif" ALT="[Picture of Al Gore]">Vice President Gore</A> to head up the <A HREF="http://www.npr.gov/">National Performance Review (NPR)</A), a project to make government work better and cost less. You can <A HREF="http://www.ospt.eop.gov/sounds/gore.au"> <IMG SRC="http://www.ostp.eop.gov/icons/audio.gif" ALT="[Sound Icon]">hear</A> or <A HREF="http://www.npr.gov/al_npr_intro.html">read</A> Mr. Gore's speech introducing NPR.

This would look like:

The President asked [Picture of Al Gore] Vice President Gore to head up the National Performance Review (NPR) a project to make government work better and cost less. You can [Sound Icon] hear Mr. Gore's speech introducing NPR or read a transcript..

Please send comments and suggestions to: web-team@trace.wisc.edu