Day 98: WCAG and Hearing Impairments

Published on 08 Mar 2019

• journal
• resources
• review
• was
• design
• people
• ux
• wcag

Yesterday's learning about how WCAG benefits people with visual impairments pushed me forward into more WCAG overview to see how it benefits people with hearing impairments (deaf and hard of hearing). Deafblind benefit from using the combined design techniques of visually impaired and hearing impaired.

• Reviewed Deque's Design Considerations for Disabilities [PDF] cheatsheet
• Added hearing impairments alongside success criteria in my my WCAG cheatsheet.
• Continued Deque's Semantic Structures and Navigation course. 56% complete.
• Read more of Web for Everyone. 18% complete.

• Semantic structures that screen readers (and sometimes everyone):
  • links (WCAG 2.4.4, A & 2.4.9, AAA)
  • navigation between pages (WCAG 3.2.3, AA & 3.2.4, AA)
  • navigation on page
• Navigation keyboard shortcuts for screen readers.
• WCAG success criteria that benefit people with hearing impairments;

Tips from Giles Colborne's book Simple and Usable (as quoted in Web for Everyone:

• simplicity is good science and good interface design
• simple designs put complexity in its place
• observe real people to learn what's needed
• designing for multiple devices supports accessibility

aria-describedby and aria-labelledby WILL access content that is inside a container hidden using aria-hidden="true".

aria-labelledby, aria-describedby, aria-label, and hidden text are some ways to let a screen reader user know of current page. Or use aria-current="page" which has some support.

The following lists target WCAG success criteria that benefit people with visual impairments. The main concern for hard of hearing is to provide text or sign language alternatives to any sound provided.

• 1.1.1 Non-text alternatives
• 1.2.1 Audio-only & Video-only
• 1.2.2 Captions (pre-recorded)
• 1.2.3 Audio description or media alternative (pre-recorded)
• 1.3.3 Sensory characteristics

• 1.2.2 Captions (live)

• 1.2.6 Sign language (pre-recorded)
• 1.2.8 Media alternatives (pre-recorded)
• 1.2.9 Audio-only (live)