Desenvolvendo vídeos para proporcionar acessibilidade aos visitantes surdos nos centros de ciências itinerantes

Abstract

A acessibilidade para os surdos nos espaços de divulgação científica é um direito garantido por lei, mas pouco implementado. Esta pesquisa participativa de abordagem qualitativa teve por objetivo apresentar o processo de desenvolvimento de vídeos guias para centros de ciências itinerantes e as estratégias utilizadas para sanar os problemas identificados, bem como analisar a opinião dos surdos sobre o material desenvolvido. Para isso, produzimos vídeos guias em Libras e os apresentamos para um grupo de 30 surdos avaliarem os quesitos: explicação, conteúdo, interpretação e cor de fundo. A avaliação do público surdo nos mostrou que é importante elaborar estratégias para facilitar a compreensão do que está sendo explicado, já que há variações linguísticas dentro da Libras e diferentes níveis de aquisição linguística. Duas das estratégias que utilizamos e foram bem aceitas pelos surdos para solucionar esta questão foi o uso de legendas e de imagens ilustrativas. Outra estratégia sugerida pelos surdos foi maior utilização da descrição imagética, recurso amplamente usado pelos surdos e que ajuda a criar uma imagem visual do que está sendo explicado. Verificamos também que as cores de fundo melhor aceitas foram a azul e a verde, e que as cores preta e branca devem ser disponibilizadas como opcional para atender pessoas com alguma deficiência visual. Concluímos que os vídeos guias atingiram o objetivo de transmitir a informação e teve boa aceitação pelo público surdo, sendo, portanto, adequada a sua implementação em centros de ciências itinerantes que contam com o trabalho voluntário.

Analysis of an accessibility strategy for deaf people: Videos on a traveling science center

“…In CST's videos in BSL, we decided to use more classifiers and imagery descriptions as well as inserting illustrative images. In addition, the videos had subtitles at the bottom, and whenever a term was spelled (fingerspelling -writing words with a manual alphabet), it was displayed with the capital letters in the subtitles (Ferreira, 2021a). These strategies had three goals: (a) to help the understanding of fingerspelling and some signs that may not be known by the deaf visitor, either because there is a linguistic variation or because they have never seen that signal before, especially scientific terms; (b) to diversify the way content is presented, as it is not possible to affirm that all deaf people have the same difficulty with written Portuguese or that all of them have fluency of sign language-some deaf people may find reading/writing as the best way for learning while others may better understand through images; and (c) to serve a larger audience since some deaf people do not use sign language and communicate orally using, preferably, lip reading, writing, and oralization to communicate (Perlin, 2016).…”

“…This could be one of the reasons why, during the validation process, the group had more difficulty in understanding compared to our student participants of the research. During the validation process, the videos were watched in isolation without the practical activity (Ferreira, 2021a), while, at the research stage, the videos were watched during an in-person visit along with the interactive activity. found that there is an active construction of knowledge when individuals handle and explore a studied object, which could explain why active methodologies are easier to understand.…”

“…Based on the validation data, the videos were improved and used in the present research. The validation procedure was conducted totally online as the group did not have the opportunity to perform the activities in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Ferreira, 2021a).…”

“…These backgrounds were chosen based on the previous validation process for the videos, in which blue and green backgrounds were identified as those preferred by the deaf participants. The black and white backgrounds were indicated by deaf people as the best colors for deaf people with low vision or deafblind people (Ferreira, 2021a). The videos had explanations in BSL and subtitles at the bottom with words in capital letters for which fingerspelling (writing words with a manual alphabet) was done.…”

“…The videos had explanations in BSL and subtitles at the bottom with words in capital letters for which fingerspelling (writing words with a manual alphabet) was done. In addition, there was insertion of illustrative images of the technical terms, as well as greater use of classifiers and an image description to improve understanding (Ferreira, 2021a). Some videos were divided into three simple parts.…”