ISSN: 1579-9794
Hikma 20 (1) (2021), 71 - 90
Let's put standardisation in practice:
accessibility services and interaction
ESTELLA ONCINS
estella.oncins@uab.cat
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
PILAR ORERO
pilar.orero@uab.cat
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Fecha de recepción: 15 de julio de 2020
Fecha de aceptación: 20 de octubre de 2020
Abstract: Quality is a subjective attribute. For media accessibility, quality is
an agreed benchmark issued by a standardisation agency. The context of
work on media accessibility in standardisation agencies is the Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), wherein article 9.2 requests
States Parties to take appropriate measures, among others “To develop,
promulgate and monitor the implementation of minimum standards and
guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services open or provided to
the public”. Meeting CRPD requirements has led to many international
standardisation agencies to actively produce technical requirements towards
accessibility, both for physical and digital/online environments. Technology is
developing at a fast pace to produce new interactions, which turn into new
communication barriers, some of which might be avoidable. Looking at
recommendations from some accessibility standards at the design stage could
solve many issues and help towards native accessible technology. This article
looks at existing standards related to accessibility and media communication.
The first part of the article looks at different standardisation agencies and the
need to produce harmonised standards for accessibility at IEC, ITU, ISO and
W3C. The second part of the article outlines how standards are produced and
implemented at a European level by the European Standardisation
Organisations (CEN, CENELEC and ETSI). It then lists existing standards for
each media accessibility service: subtitling, audio description, audio subtitling
and sign language. Mention is made of Easy to Read as a new emerging
accessibility modality. The final part of the article will provide conclusions and
directions for further research.
Keywords: Media Accessibility, Standards, Accessibility services, Subtitling,
Audio description, Audio subtitling, Easy to Read.
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Resumen: La calidad es un atributo subjetivo y, en el caso de la accesibilidad
a los medios, es un acuerdo de recomendaciones consensuado en las
agencias de estandarización. El artículo 9.2 de la Convención de los derechos
de las personas con discapacidad (CRPD) recoge: los Estados Partes
tomarán las medidas apropiadas para desarrollar, diseminar y monitorizar la
implementación de unos mínimos en estándares y guías de buenas prácticas
para lugares y servicios abiertos o suministrados al público. El CRPD es el
contexto de trabajo de las agencias internacionales de estandarización para
producir los requisitos técnicos para la accesibilidad, tanto para entornos
físicos como digitales. La tecnología se está desarrollando a gran velocidad
para permitir nuevas interacciones del usuario con el entorno, que a la vez se
convierten en nuevas barreras de comunicación, algunas evitables. Tener en
cuenta los estándares de accesibilidad en la fase inicial del diseño y
desarrollo ayudaría a que la tecnología fuera accesible desde un inicio. Este
artículo analiza los estándares existentes relacionados con la accesibilidad y
la comunicación a los medios. La primera parte del artículo revisa la
importancia de redactar estándares armonizados para la accesibilidad en
cuatro agencias que producen estándares de accesibilidad: IEC, ITU, ISO y
W3C. Luego describe cómo las organizaciones europeas de normalización
(CEN, CENELEC y ETSI) producen e implementan estándares. En la
segunda parte del artículo se presentan los servicios de accesibilidad a los
medios: subtitulado para personas sordas, audiodescripción para personas
con discapacidad visual, audiosubtitulado y lengua de señas. También se
menciona la lectura fácil como una nueva modalidad de accesibilidad
emergente. En la parte final del artículo se proporcionan conclusiones y
direcciones para futuras investigaciones.
Palabras clave: Accesibilidad Media, Estándares, Servicios de accesibilidad,
Subtitulado para personas sordas, Audiodescripción para personas con
discapacidad visual.
INTRODUCTION
Accessibility has been associated to two basic concepts when
analysing person-environment relationships: usability and Universal Design
(Iwarsson and Ståhl 2003). The built environment and transport were the two
starting fields for accessibility research, where most theoretical discussions
took place towards the end of the last century (Sanford 2012). Accessibility,
then and even today, is closely linked to disability and the possibility of
rehabilitation (Lid 2009). This means applying a clinical model for user
classification to areas where there is no scope for remedial health action.
Reading subtitles will never restore hearing, listening to audio description will
never improve sight. Accessibility requirements are usually classified
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according to the United Nations World Health Organization Disability
Assessment Schedule (WHODAS). This document classifies people’s
impairments for clinical rehabilitation, even when dealing with the Social
Construction of Disability in New Media (Goggin and Newell 2003). Some
voices have been raised to distinguish between “impairment effects and
disabling barriers” (Lid 2014: 1344) and the possibility of moving from
disabilities to Amartya Sen’s model of capabilities (Mitra 2006, 2018). This
represents a departure from disability and accessibility towards usability and
diversity pointing towards normalisation (Ellis 2016, Orero and Tor-Carrogio
2018, Agulló et al. 2019). For some academics, Universal Design (UD) is no
longer a rehabilitation inclusive concept, but a proactive design production
following the seven principles of User Design (UD)–which are in fact good for
all members of society (Molly Follette Story 1998). These days, accessibility
is moving away from exclusive approaches towards a democratic participative
society looking for diversity and inclusion (Taylor 2017). This accessibility
state of the art is also reflected in standardisation, where, for example, the
Spanish UN media accessibility standards have the rights and exclusive
approach to Subtitles for the Deaf (UNE 153010:2012) Audio Description for
the Blind (UNE 153020:2005).
1. HOW DO STANDARDS COME INTO EXISTENCE?
Standards are consensus documents developed by committees which
are made up of various stakeholders such as: experts from the industry, public
and consumer interest groups, and government representatives with an
interest in a particular topic. By following recommendations gathered in a
standard, quality might be achieved. Understanding how standards are
produced and the importance of contributing with research data towards
quality benchmarking is the objective of this article. Documents go through
various stages of development, and at all times there is the need for research-
driven data and expert participation.
According to the EU Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012:
The primary objective of standardisation is the definition of voluntary
technical or quality specifications with which current or future
products, production processes or services may comply.
Standardisation can cover various issues, such as standardisation
of different grades or sizes of a particular product or technical spec-
ifications in product or services markets where compatibility and
interoperability with other products or systems are essential.
International standards provide rules, guidelines or characteristics for
activities or for their results, and aim at achieving the optimum degree of order,
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i.e. quality, in a given context. There are formal and informal standards.
Formal standards are documents that are elaborated, approved or adopted by
national, (i.e. AENOR in Spain), regional (i.e. CEN, CENELEC and ETSI in
Europe), or international standards bodies (i.e. ISO, IEC and ITU), whilst
informal standards are published by other standards development
organisations (SDOs), many of which are very well known and respected, (i.e
W3C).
Standards fall into two main categories, normative and informative.
Normative documents contain requirements which must be met for
compliance with the standard to be certified. Conversely, informative
documents do not contain any requirements, hence certification of compliance
cannot be claimed. It should be mentioned that, while most standards are
normative, they also include informative elements in the form of notes,
examples, and annexes. Still, some standard documents are purely
informative. These are usually published as technical specifications, technical
reports, test methods, codes of practice, guidelines, and management
systems. ISO, for example, releases three levels of documents: (a)
international standards (IS), the highest-level normative documents requiring
approval by the national standardisation bodies; (b) technical specifications
(TS), intermediate-level normative documents that must be reviewed three
years after their publication; and (c) technical reports (TR), which do not have
a normative status, but rather are informative documents. Other
standardisation bodies make a similar distinction between informative,
guidance, and normative documents.
National and international bodies define a standard as a document
providing rules and guidelines which is established by agreement among all
interested stakeholders. In the following section, the join coordination work of
the main international standardisation agencies in the media accessibility field
is explained. Then, we will outline how harmonised standards are first
elaborated at a European level by the European standardisation organisations
(CEN, CENELEC and ETSI) and then applied at a national level by the
national standardisation bodies of the EU Member States.
1.1. Standardisation agencies
There are many names to describe an organisation working with
standards: Standards Organisation (SO), Standards Body (SB), Standards
Development Organisation (SDO), or Standards Setting Organisation (SSO).
All these organisations develop technical standards which are voluntary.
Exceptionally, some standards become mandatory when they are adopted by
regulators as legal requirements in particular domains. A good example is the
WCAG 2.0 (W3C), quoted in the European Union’s Web Accessibility
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Directive (2016). Standardisation agencies may be at international, regional,
or national levels. Their business is to organise standards, draft new ones,
and revise existing ones which are then sold.
1.2. International standardisation agencies
There are four main agencies for accessibility at a global level: The
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO), The United Nations agency for
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C). The W3C, created in 1994 by Lee Burnes-Jones, is an
international community developing open standards to ensure resilience in the
long-term growth of the web. W3C is the leading standards body for the web
industry. Their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0, now WCAG
2.1), published in 2008, were adopted by ISO as ISO/IEC 40500:2012.
Therefore, countries will be able to make reference to this standard in their
national legislation, thus improving harmonisation in terms of legislation on
web accessibility between different countries.
The traditional IEC, ISO and ITU comprise the World Standards
Cooperation (WSC) alliance, which was established in 2001. Their objective
is to create international standards that bring technological, economic, and
societal benefits. The WSC also promotes the adoption and implementation
of international consensus-based standards worldwide. It helps to harmonise
technical and other product and services specifications, making industry more
efficient and breaking down barriers for international trade. Conformity to
International Standards helps reassure consumers that products are safe,
efficient, and good for the environment. According to Matamala and Orero
(2019: 144), “ISO and IEC have established a Joint Technical Committee 1:
ISO/IEC JTC 1. This committee has responsibility for standardisation in the
area of information technology. Within JTC 1 are a number of technical
committees of which Subcommittee 35 (SC 35) is the lead subcommittee on
User Interface Component accessibility. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 35 have now
joined ITU IRG-AVA and will, in the future, endorse joint international
standards on accessibility”.
To ensure that standards contribute to accessibility, IEC, ISO, and ITU
elaborated a joint policy statement on standardisation and accessibility,
emphasising the importance of the following four points:
1) Apply the principles of Accessible Design or Universal Design
2) Engage older persons and persons with disabilities in the
development of standards
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3) Train standards developers on the importance of accessibility
4) Improve accessibility of standardisation secretariat support
Moreover, to support the need to address accessibility in international
standards, in 2001 ISO and IEC published the ISO/IEC Guide 71 - Guide for
addressing accessibility in standards, which was adopted by ITU as ITU-T
Supplement 17 for the H-series, to support the mainstreaming of accessibility
features into standards. For European standardisation activities, CEN and
CENELEC adopted this standard as CEN/CENELEC “Guide 6 - Guidelines for
standards developers to address the needs of older persons and persons with
disabilities” (CEN/CENELEC 2002).
1.3. Regional Level: European Standardisation Organisations (ESO)
CEN, CENELEC and ETSI are the regional mirror bodies to their
international counterparts, i.e. ISO, IEC and ITU-T respectively. In the
European Union, only standards developed by CEN, CENELEC and ETSI are
recognised as European Standards. Hence, CENELEC closely cooperates
with CEN and ETSI, working jointly in the interest of European harmonisation,
creating both standards requested by the market and harmonised standards
in support of European legislation (EU Directives). According to the EU
Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012, “‘harmonised standard’ means a European
standard adopted on the basis of a request made by the Commission for the
application of Union harmonisation legislation”. An example is the harmonised
European standard EN 301 549 Accessibility requirements suitable for public
procurement of ICT products and services in Europe, which was the result of
a standardisation mandate, called Mandate
1
376, sent by the European
Commission to the European Standardisation Organisations (CEN,
CENELEC and ETSI). This mandate aims to assist with the harmonisation of
public procurement practices in Europe by developing a standard that
specifies the functional accessibility requirements for public procurement of
ICT products and services.
With the finalisation of the Web Accessibility Directive (2016), it was
necessary to update EN 301 549. In 2017, the European Commission
produced standardisation request Mandate 554. This required CEN,
CENELEC and ETSI to update EN 301 549 so that it could be adopted as a
harmonised standard. The importance of the standard EN 301 549 v2.1.2
1
Mandates are the mechanism by which the European Commission (EC) and the secretariat of
the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) request the European Standardisation
Organisations (ESOs) to develop and adopt European standards in support of European policies
and legislation.
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(2018) resides in that being endorsed by law is now mandatory in all EU
Member States. At the moment, it only affects public sector organisations, but
it is expected that, shortly, other sectors outside the public sphere will need to
comply with the EU legislation and provide accessible websites.
1.4. National standardisation agencies
Each country has its own national standards body (NSB). There are two
workflows to generate a standard. The national standards body may prepare
its own standards which are then sent to one of the three international
agencies to be reworked as international standards. A good example is the
Spanish Easy to Read (UNE/PNE153101 EX) standard, which is becoming
an international ISO standard ISO/IEC 23859:2019(X) Information technology
– User interfaces – Guidance on making written text easy to read and easy to
understand.
It may work the other way round: a standard is developed at
international level and is then localised and adopted by a national
standardisation agency. Some national agencies are OFCOM in the UK,
AFNOR in France, UNI in Italy and DIN in Germany.
2. HARMONISED STANDARDS ADDRESSING ACCESSIBILITY
In recent years, the EU has published a number of laws that address
digital accessibility and promote digital inclusion, such as the Web
Accessibility Directive (2016), which establishes common accessibility
requirements for all Member States enabling everyone to read, understand,
and complete administrative procedures on public sector websites and mobile
applications. The second law is the Audiovisual Media Services Directive
(2018), which covers the means to achieve accessibility such as with sign
language, subtitling for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing and audio descriptions
for both television broadcasting (i.e. linear services) and video on demand
(VOD). The last law passed is the European Accessibility Act (2019), which
sets common accessibility requirements, including a number of key ICT
products and services.
Harmonised standards, such as the EN 301 549, mean that all EU
Member States now have common requirements for digital accessibility in the
public sector. Where national legislation on accessibility exists, the laws need
to be harmonised with the existing directives. An example is Germany, a
country with an existing national accessibility law,
Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz (BGG), which supports some WCAG 2.1
level AAA requirements that are not in the Web Accessibility Directive.
Therefore, regulation needs to refer to EN 301 549 and additionally to the
supported WCAG level AAA requirements. In other countries, there is no
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legislation on digital accessibility in place, thus new legislation needs to be
written. One of the main problems of harmonisation in the EU is that some
national digital accessibility requirements differ in terms of coverage (to what
and to whom they apply), on the level of detail, and on the technical details
themselves (Oncins et al. 2020). An example is the subtitling service. All public
broadcasters in the EU provide subtitles, but this service is not covered on all
platforms. Only in a few countries, media authorities required subtitles on
online platforms or there were voluntary agreements to provide subtitles on all
platforms.
In order to address these differences in coverage, the European
Accessibility Act (EAA) aims to help dismantle barriers between European
countries due to different national digital accessibility requirements that are
emerging. The EAA establishes functional requirements for all European
countries. This means requirements establishing accessibility principles
instead of prescribing the detailed technical solutions. The EAA will tell “what”
needs to be accessible in terms of functional requirements but will not impose
detailed technical solutions telling “how” to make it accessible. Still, while
accessibility requirements have become mandatory in the European
legislative frameworks of the Member States, the relevant EU law does not
define what accessibility means and what it entails, leaving this to be defined
in national or sector-specific standards.
3. STANDARDS BY ACCESSIBILITY SERVICES
Accessibility is defined within EN ISO 9241-112:2017 as the "extent to
which products, systems, services, environments and facilities can be used
by people from a population with the widest range of user needs,
characteristics and capabilities to achieve identified goals in identified
contexts of use". However, there is no common international definition on how
products and services should be made accessible. International
standardisation agencies provide guidance to regional and national
standardisation bodies to develop legislations, such as the AVMSD. These
laws include accessibility requirements with reference to standards for certain
products or services to meet user needs and comply with obligations, such as
EN 301 549. Still, key stakeholders in the media accessibility industry are
confused by the different types of standards issued at international, regional,
and national level, as well as their applicability. The table below compares two
different types of standards documents issued at regional (EN 301 549) and
international level (ISO/IEC and ITU).
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Definition/S
tandard
EN 301 549
(WCAG 2.1)
ISO/IEC
ITU
Applicability
Public entities,
limited to the EU.
Regional
normative
standard.
Commercial use.
International
informative
standards:
Technical
specifications
and guidelines.
Non-commercial
use. International
informative
standards: Technic
al reports,
guidelines, checklist
and toolkit.
Scope
Regulate and
provide
accessibility
requirements for
ICT products and
services.
Provide
guidance to
accessibility
services. Focus
on how to create
and deliver the
service.
Provide guidance to
accessibility
services. Focus on
technical papers.
Compliance
EU Standard
refers to WCAG
2.1 guidelines
which set three
levels (A, AA,
AAA), testable
success criteria for
each accessibility
service.
Do not provide
compliance
levels.
Guidelines and
checklists are
intended to
guide companies
and
organisations.
Do not provide
compliance.
Guidelines and
checklists are
intended to guide
companies and
organisations.
Availability
Free to access.
It has a cost and
a purchase
process.
Free to access.
Coverage
Same standard
covers all
accessibility
services, based on
WCAG 2.1.
Different
informative
standards for
each
accessibility
service including
different modes,
Different informative
standards, i.e.
recommendations,
covers different
accessibility
services depending
on the mode, i.e.
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i.e. live or pre-
recorded.
live or pre-
recorded.
Table 1 - Comparison between EN 301 549, ISO/IEC and ITU accessibility
standards
With the entry into force of the Web Accessibility Directive (2016), the updated
Audiovisual Media Services Directive (2018), and the European Accessibility
Act (2019), national standardisation agencies from each Member State are
adapting their laws in order to ensure access and availability of the requested
media accessibility services according to European legislation, namely sign
language, subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing, spoken subtitles, and
audio description.
3.1. Subtitling
Subtitling/captioning is the most covered media accessibility service in
international, regional, and national standardisation agencies and laws. ISO,
ITU/IEC and W3C mention three common elements related to
subtitles/captions, which are: primary audience (people who are Deaf and
Hard of Hearing), service eligibility (closed or open subtitles/captions) and
time-based (live, semi-live or pre-recorded subtitles).
ITU documents related to accessibility services are non-commercial
documents and mainly informative, namely delivered in the form of technical
papers, guidelines, and checklists. Their main scope is to ensure that the
specified accessibility services and features are usable by a wide range of
users including people with disabilities. The ITU documents related to
subtitling are:
2019 - FSTP-ACC-RCS - Overview of remote captioning services. This
technical paper describes remote captioning services. It defines reference
models, requirements and functionalities that facilitate, via an assistive
intermediary (i.e. real time captioner or via voice recognition software), to
enable the inclusive meeting participation of people either on site or remotely.
2016 - FSTP-UMAA - Use cases for assisting persons with disabilities
using mobile applications. This technical paper is based on use cases and
presents some applications on smartphones that can facilitate some of daily
life tasks for people with disabilities.
2015 - FSTP-AM - Guidelines for accessible meetings. This technical
paper provides guidelines for the organisation of meetings that facilitate the
inclusion of persons with disabilities (including age-related ones) and the
elimination of barriers for participation.
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2015 - FSTP-ACC-RemPart - Guidelines for supporting remote
participation in meetings for all. These guidelines outline the requirements for
ensuring that meetings are accessible to remote participants, including those
with disabilities and those using assistive technologies.
2006 - FSTP-TACL - Telecommunications Accessibility Checklist. This
document intends to ensure that the specified services and features are
usable by a wide range of users, including people with disabilities.
ISO documents covering the subtitling service are for commercial use
and subject to purchase. ISO has two documents related to subtitling, namely
ISO/IEC 20071-23:2018 Information technology — User interface component
accessibility — Part 23: Visual presentation of audio information (including
captions and subtitles) and ISO/IEC TS 20071-25:2018 Information
technology — User interface component accessibility — Part 25: Guidance on
the audio presentation of text in videos, including captions, subtitles and other
on-screen text. Both documents are informative standards and apply to all
presentations of visual alternatives to audio information intended to be
presented as captions/subtitles and aim at improving accessibility (Matamala
& Orero 2019). While the 20071-23 are guidelines with a focus on the creation
and delivery process, the second, 20071-25, are technical specifications
related to quality, user involvement and visual design.
In the EU, requirements for subtitling services are covered in the
normative standard EN 301 549, which directly references WCAG 2.1
guidelines from W3C. These guidelines are divided into the following four
principles: 1) perceivable, meaning that information and user interface
components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive. 2)
operable, meaning that user interface components and navigation must be
operable. 3) understandable, meaning that information and the operation of
the user interface must be understandable. 4) robust, meaning that content
must be robust enough to be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user
agents, including assistive technologies. Each principle is made up of
Accessibility Guidelines (a total of 13 guidelines). For each Accessibility
Guideline there are one or more testable success criteria which are classified
into three levels (A, AA, AAA).
Subtitling requirements are addressed in success criterion 1.2.2
(captioning for recorded media) and 1.2.4 (captioning for live media).
According to Success Criterion 1.2.2 Captions (Pre-recorded), captions are
provided for all pre-recorded audio content in synchronised media, except
when the media is a media alternative for text and is clearly labelled as such.
(Level A). According to Success Criterion 1.2.4 Captions (Live), captions are
provided for all live audio content in synchronised media. (Level AA).
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3.2. Audio Description
In the last decades, audio description (AD) has increased in popularity
in media accessibility research, practice, and standards. Still, different studies
have stressed the importance of creating a European AD standard (Orero
2005, Vercauteren 2007). AD is an accessibility service that has been
practiced and studied all over the world, with different countries following
different timeframes in terms of enforcement of legislation, provision of AD
services, production of guidelines, as well as support for research and training
initiatives, such as ADLAB 2012 or ADLAB PRO 2017. In 2008, Spain was the
only country in the world with a written standard for audio description, namely
the AENOR Spanish technical standards, Standard UNE 153020:2005:
Requirements for audio description (Puigdomènech et al. 2008).
At an international level, different standardisation documents have
been elaborated, with the main focus on providing guidance for the creation
and delivery of the AD service. This is the case of ITU - International toolkit on
providing, delivering and campaigning for audio description on television and
film (ITU-D) (2011, updated in 2016) and FSTP-CONF-F921 - Compliance of
audio-based navigation system for persons with vision impairment (2018). The
first document is a toolkit with a main focus on sharing information on the
development of AD across countries and providing support and technical
information to key stakeholders working to improve media accessibility. The
second is a technical paper which provides a conformance framework for
testing that implementations of audio-based network navigation systems are
accessible for persons with vision impairments.
In the EU, requirements for the audio description service are covered
in the normative standard EN 301 549, which directly references WCAG 2.1
guidelines from W3C. Audio description requirements are addressed in three
Success Criteria. The first is Success Criterion 1.2.5 Audio Description (Pre-
recorded) (Level AA). Audio description is provided for all pre-recorded video
content in synchronised media. The second is Success Criterion 1.2.3 Audio
Description or Media Alternative (Pre-recorded) (Level A). An alternative for
time-based media or audio description of the pre-recorded video content is
provided for synchronised media, except when the media is a media
alternative for text and is clearly labelled as such. The third is Success
Criterion 1.2.7 Extended Audio Description (Pre-recorded) (Level AA). Where
pauses in foreground audio are insufficient to allow audio descriptions to
convey the sense of the video, extended audio description is provided for all
pre-recorded video content in synchronised media. For Success Criteria 1.2.3,
1.2.5, and 1.2.7, if all of the information in the video track is already provided
in the audio track, no audio description is necessary.
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3.3. Audio Subtitling
Audio subtitling is not a widespread accessibility service. Few
references to audio subtitling in standards can be found and “[i]n most cases
written subtitles appear in the ‘What to describe?’ section in AD standards and
guidelines”. (Iturregui-Gallardo 2019 42). According to ITU, most European
countries do not offer this service. It is only offered in Nordic countries and in
the Belgian Flanders region, where broadcasters offer all or almost all foreign
programmes with audio subtitles, and not with AD (Orero et al. 2020a).
In international standards, the only mention to this service is made by
ISO/IEC TS 20071-25:2017 - Information technology - User interface
component accessibility - Part 25: Guidance on the audio presentation of text
in videos, including captions, subtitles and other on-screen text. W3C does
not cover this service and the standard EN 301 549 refers to the ISO standard
document.
3.4. Sign Language
Sign Language presentation on TV screens has been developed at
Spanish level with the UNE 139804:2007 Guidance on the use of the Spanish
Sign Language on computer networks. This has now been adopted by
ISO/IEC/ITU SC35 towards a new Sign Language 20071-24 Information
technology – User interface component accessibility – Part 24: Guidance on
Sign Language on Television Screens.
In the EU, requirements for sign language services are covered in the
normative standard EN 301 549, which directly references WCAG 2.1
guidelines from W3C. Sign Language requirements are addressed in one
Success Criterion, which is 1.2.6 Sign Language (Pre-recorded) (Level AAA).
Sign language interpretation is provided for all pre-recorded audio content in
synchronised media.
3.5. Easy-to-Read
Easy-to-Read (E2R) is becoming a modality in Media Accessibility
(Bernabé and Orero 2019). According to the authors (2019: 56), “E2R can be
described for Media Accessibility as a service to improve reading and foster
comprehension”. At an international level, some standard documents are
being issued, such as the ISO standard SO/IEC 23859:2019(X) Information
technology – User interfaces – Guidance on making written text easy to read
and easy to understand. There is no agreement to the term, and that has led
to another ISO standard ISO/WD 24495-1 Plain language - Part 1: Governing
principles and guidelines (Orero et al. 2020b).
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Hikma 20 (1) (2021), 71 - 90
In the EU, requirements for E2R are covered in the normative standard
EN 301 549 under accessible documentation. In WCAG 2.1, there are six
Success Criteria that address accessibility for people with cognitive
disabilities. Some are more specific for cognitive accessibility and others can
also be beneficial for other user profiles, such as people with low vision. First,
Success Criterion 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (Level AA) states that the
content must be included in a form that is clearly identifiable. Second, Success
Criterion 1.3.6 Identify Purpose (Level AAA) establishes that the objective of
all user interface components, icons, etc. must be clearly identified. Third,
Success Criterion 1.4.12 Text Spacing (Level AA) establishes the text style
properties of texts that benefit users with low vision, but also people with
cognitive disabilities who need the texts to be arranged in a way that makes
them easier to read. Fourth, Success Criterion 2.2.6 Timeouts (Level AAA)
states that users must be informed about the time they have before the
information is lost or the session ends (unless the duration is longer than 20
hours). Fifth, Success Criterion 2.3.3 Animation from Interactions (Level AAA),
indicates that, in interactions with animations, the animation can be
deactivated unless the functionality or the information that it conveys is
essential. Last, Success Criterion 4.1.3 Status Messages (Level AA),
indicates that error messages or other messages that appear on the screen
must be perceived by users. This criterion benefits different types of users
(people with cognitive disabilities, blind people, or people with low vision) who
often miss the warning messages because of the subtle way they are
displayed. The recently updated WCAG 2.1 is an intermediate step towards
WCAG 3.0, which is currently under development. In the upcoming version,
new accessibility criteria adapted to emerging technologies such as the
Internet of things, artificial intelligence and immersivity will be considered.
CONCLUSION
The time lapse from passing a law and its implementation is around
three years. In the case of Europe, laws need to be transposed to each
country. This year will see the start of the legal impact on media accessibility
across Europe with the Web Accessibility Directive (2016). And it is a matter
of time for the other two to start impacting: the Audiovisual Media Service
Directive (updated in 2018) and the European Accessibility Act (2019). To aid
this transposition, the harmonised European standard EN 301549 (2018) is
now in place –though it is being revised.
Much work is required towards the assessment and implementation
of digital accessibility. Still, rather than focusing on reporting implementation
and results, the concept of native accessible makes more sense (Oncins and
Orero 2020; Oncins et al. 2013). That is, to add accessibility in the DNA of any
development from conception. In the case of media production, it is what
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Romero-Fresco (2013) coined as “accessible filmmaking”. By adopting this
approach, industry, organisations, and governments may ensure substantial
benefits beyond those of media accessibility policy or standard compliance.
With normative and informative standards being present at an early
stage of media development, designers, developers, and content creators are
aware of the guidelines accompanying a specific service or even the technical
specifications that maintain quality for end-users. Media accessibility services
thus comply with regional and national laws. Still, more training is required to
support and incorporate media accessibility principles into work practices.
Within this regard, educational projects such as ACT (2017), ADLAB (2012)
and ADLAB PRO (Perego 2017) and existing ones such as ILSA, EASIT, LTA
and IMPACT are proving to be effective in training new accessibility
professionals in different fields.
The right to access media content is applicable or usable only if access
is granted. Access to a medium is achieved through the provision of
appropriate technology and ensuring that it is barrier free. Access to
environments means providing barrier-free settings, such as assisting viewers
with vision loss to reach the service. The European Regulators Group for
Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) emphasised the need to address the
entire supply chain for accessibility in the television field (broadcast content,
carriers such as cable TV companies, consumer equipment such as set top
boxes, remote controls, TV receivers, etc.), as well as a full range of recently
available content access and delivery modes.
There is still a clear gap between the legislations designed to improve
digital accessibility and their practical implementation due to the high degree
of technical skills required to conformance test accessibility, the costs involved
in such a process, effective resourcing to address this issue, and a lack of
awareness as to how people with disabilities are likely to engage with such
content. As an example, subtitling is the most covered accessibility service in
the public broadcasting industry, reaching 100% of the programmes in some
countries. Still, there are two main challenges that broadcasters face, namely
technological issues arising from the multi-platform environment and the
variety of standards applied across Europe. Broadcasters often use different
technologies and file formats, and apply different standards depending on the
delivery platform. This is not helping the European Digital Single Market.
Whilst this paper has only been able to address accessibility services
issues in standards in the broadest sense, the authors feel that accessibility
is primarily impacted by social drivers, not industry, and include limited
awareness as being one of the major challenges to properly address universal
accessibility and acceptability.
86 Let’s put standardisation in practice: accessibility services and interaction
Hikma 20 (1) (2021), 71 - 90
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work has been partially funded by ERASMUS+ IMPACT 2019-1-
FR01-KA204-062381, ERASMUS+ LTA 2018-1-DE01-KA203-004218,
ERASMUS+ EASIT 2018-1-ES01-KA203-05275. Also by H202:
MEDIAVERSE GA 957252, HELIOS GA 825585, SO-CLOSE GA 870939,
TRACTION GA 870610. The authors are members of TransMedia Catalonia,
an SGR research group funded by Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del
Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya
(2017SGR113).
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