According to the World Health Organization (WHO), hearing loss affects more than 5% of the world’s population. Although 5% may appear to be a small percentage, it represents approximately 466 million people around the world. Not only that, it is estimated that by 2050, 700 million people will have hearing loss. In addition, by the same organization on different sites, World Report on Hearing (WRH) says over 1.5 billion people are affected by hearing loss now. Shocking, isn’t it?
Organizations don’t always know how to break down barriers and achieve their goal of being Deaf-friendly. It’s challenging to know what to do and how to do it so this page provides all types of resources for accessibility. In order to change the industry, it has to start with you. When all of us learn together, each person learn more. Do the best you can until you know better then when you know better, do better. Be the change for accessibility.
Caption the videos
Live voice to captions apps are available, or you can manually type captions in video editing tools. There are also captioning services that allow you to just upload your video and receive subtitles. It improves comprehension and increases the amount of SEO/video views. Many consumers on Facebook, Youtube, Tiktok, and Instagram are watching videos without sound. It will give you higher engagement. Captions will aid non-native speakers because it will make it easier for them to follow along with the speech. You’ll have a textual version of your video with captions, making it easier to produce new material like blogs, articles, and emails.
The clips app provides the live captions that are generated automatically as you talk and appear onscreen in time with your VoiceOver. Customizable text stickers can be used to label components in films and photographs. To help tell your tale, full-screen posters with moving backdrops and customisable text can be used.
InShot App has text and emoji that can be added to videos and photos. It’s simple to sync text and emoji with video using timeline features.
In the website of REV, they do charge services to have all English audio professionally transcribed to text. For the transcription and english captions, they charge $1.25 per minute to have the audio or video converted to text. If you want to diversify your audience, it cost $3-7 per minute to translate your videos with foreign captions. For the webinars or lives, they charge $20 per host which would greatly benefit you. Interviews, content marketing, video creation, and academic research all benefit from Rev’s transcription service.
ASL captions can translate ASL videos to captions, and audio to captions. They also provide a service of having split screen with video on the left and an interpreter on the right with captions on the bottom in the middle of split screens. The aslcaptions service charges $7 per minute with 2-8 days turnaround. However, they do provide priority service for $10 per minute within 48 hours turnaround. The audio captions charge $3 per minute with 72 hour turnaround but if priority service needed, it is $5 per minute with 24 hour turnaround.
Their talented voice actors have a lot of expertise delivering the right tone and nuance to complement your message. For an immersive audio experience, their audio engineers create and design sound effects. Their skilled musicians can compose and put the ideal instrumental soundtrack for your music composing project.
This program works by allowing you to choose or record a video with speaking audio, or you can use your camera to record one. Then click next after selecting the video language and export type (landscape/square/portrait). You can adjust and change the automated voice recognition results. Text style, color, animation, and output format are all options.
Captions for your videos are automatically generated and edited by the program. There are no watermarks on it, and it is completely free. Before exporting your movie, you’ll be able to adjust the subtitles as many times as you like and preview it. You’ll be able to change the style, position, color, and size of your captions.
It’s simple, quick, and automatic with MixCaptions: simply upload a video, and they’ll transcribe it in a matter of minutes. Your video captions can always be edited and customized later. Your first video that is up to 3 minutes long will be transcribed for free. Captions can be displayed in three different places on your videos: at the top, in the middle, or at the bottom. It has the options of transcribing in English, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, and Vietnamese mechanically. You can transcribe up to 10 minutes of video if you are subscriber, while business subscribers can transcribe up to 30 minutes and you will have the option to remove the watermark.
Podcast Accessibility
Make your podcast visual and provide a transcript. Adding transcripts to podcasts boosts SEO and increases web accesibility. It also increase the chance of getting quoted and credited in other platforms such as instagram, blog, tiktok, tweet, or article.
The headliner is a great app for the podcasters that can turn audio into visuals. The waveforms draw people’s attention and inform them that their audio visualizers are playing audio. You will be able to promote your podcast with as many videos as you desire because they offer infinite videos. They can upload your full podcase episode to Youtube, which can be up to 2 hours long, and attract new viewers. They give video and audio transcriptions that are automatically transcribed for perfectly captioned videos.
This program import the recorded audio from iTunes, iCloud, Dropbox or directly from a device. You can edit your audio straight from within the app. It has captions, progress bars, text ad GIFs.
Podcast Preview is easy to use; simply enter your podcast’s RSS feed, choose an episode, and specify a time range, and you’re done. It will create a short video of the sound wave that you can use to promote the episode. You can create previews with custom mp3 files before publishing the episode. You can change the background color or image. You can convert to landscape (4:3), square (1:1), and portrait (9:16) aspect ratios. You will have the option of changing the color of the title or soundwave.
To learn American Sign Language
The ASL Shop provides you endless topics of signs such as feelings, colors, holidays, questions and gives you the slow motion of clear sign so you can copy easily.
The life print is an online American Sign Language curriculum resource center that provides endless dictionary terms. It also provides a fingerspelling chart, lifeprint library, first 100 signs, word-search puzzles, fingerspelling art, fingerspelling introduction, quizzes, ASL screensaver, ASL lessons and bibliography. You can either study on your own for free or you can take the actual courses for $483 with the instructor Dr.Bill.
The ASL App is created by Deaf people and provides conversational ASL with phrases. You have the option of controlling the speed of signing at your pace. This is so fun to use on the go!
The ASL Lab educates you on the roots of American Sign Language such as structures, context and explains where the specific sign came from.
ASL At Home provides a family curriculum focused daily routine at home in signs. It is available in two languages: English and Spanish. It is free for Deaf families, and you can learn with providers or on your own.
The ASL Connect has basic asl vocabulary that is taught through entertaining videos that are organized by theme such as sports, baby related, outdoor activities, animals, ABC, numbers, transportation, colors, fruits, emotions, pronouns, vegetables, places, weather and basic needs. It offers free online asl classes. If you want to learn ASL in greater depth, you can enroll in their online courses.
Signed with Heart teaches American Sign Language with a combination of the creator’s story telling of her life. They also provide a fingerspelling 101 course for $15 dollars with no deadline or limited time.
Sign Language Center provides online classes, in person classes, workshops, and online tutoring. Their instructors are “Native” Deaf people from various cultural backgrounds. They give you a better understanding of ASL and Deaf culture.
To communicate that doesn’t know American Sign Language
As a Deaf person, I grew up with a family who treated me as if I am hearing person and if I did not understand something, they would type or write it down. While I love them with all of my heart, I do wish they learned sign language. It is especially challenging to interact at gatherings over the holidays or birthdays. So if this is you and you don’t know sign language yet, use these apps to give additional support to make the signers feel part of the conversation.
Display instant captions for your conference calls with a single click, regardless of the tool you’re using. It will always show captions on top of the video call, shared screen, or presentation, allowing you to follow along comfortably. You can share your Ava Room Link with coworkers so they can join your conversation without downloading an app. Everyone’s words will be transcribed and color-coded for excellent real-time meeting notes. You can even save a transcript to review later or share to your close ones.
This app is simple to use, capable of capturing every word, easy to read, and capable of saving transcripts. This is great to use for one on one or for interview. This is especially useful for a gathering.
Signly brings text information to life in American Sign Language (ASL).
Google Chrome Extension
A free Google Chrome extension called “SignUp” allows users to add ASL interpretation to Disney+. This extension is a great tool for the deaf and hard of hearing community, as it allows users to enjoy mainstream movies in more accessible ways. According to a study conducted in 2017, around 80% of kids who sign have reading difficulties. This means that they are missing out on a lot of reading material so this extension helps provide visual for the kids to feel inclusive while watching Disney+ movies. Not only that, but it also helps improve their reading level on the go.