Easy to Read as Multimode Accessibility Service

Abstract

Media accessibility is becoming mainstream. While it cannot compete for popularity with the two original fields –architecture and design accessibility– it is slowly gaining acknowledgment. Subtitling was and still is the most popular media access service. In recent years, more services have been joining the alternative possibilities to access information. New technologies have also increased the number of services, and Easy to Read is proposed in this article as a new candidate to join the list of services. This article will start by describing Easy to Read, and understand its approach as: a translation modality, a linguistic variation or as a service. The second part of the article presents many accessibility services and Easy to Read features. In the third part, new hybrid services are proposed. These are the result of adding to existing access services a layer of Easy to Read creating a higher degree of accessibility. Any accessibility service aiming to facilitate comprehension will improve and optimize its function by leaning on Easy to Read. The article finishes offering many examples to secure a rapid uptake of the service across the different accessibility fields, from design to web accessibility or transport.

Accessible scenic arts and Virtual Reality: A pilot study with aged people about user preferences when reading subtitles in immersive environments

“…Even if the information provided is reduced and therefore exposition times are longer, E2R subtitles seem to be the most preferable among the elderly. However, further tests with a larger number of participants should be carried out in order to assess the preference for this type of subtitling, which at the same time is a new line within the Media Accessibility field (Bernabé & Orero 2019).…”

Culture 4 all: accessibility-enabled cultural experiences through immersive VR360 content

“…A more innovative access service mixes Easy-to-Read Language with subtitles, and proposes to create easy-to-read subtitles [43]. Easy-to-read subtitles offer a simplified version of the subtitles and are suitable for situations in which users want to focus more on the visuals and get a shorter and simpler account of the linguistic content.…”

New taxonomy of easy-to-understand access services

“…All things considered, the AVT landscape can expand and incorporate easy access services (Bernabé & Orero 2019), which both originate from their standard counterparts (e.g., audio descriptions, subtitles) and deviate from them to fulfil their function as "text enhancers" (Gottlieb 2005: 37). As translations, E2U access services are inspirational, however, regulated by recommendations and guidelines arising from: (a) text simplification guidelines and recommendations; (b) guidelines governing the underlying standard access service (e.g., audio description or subtitling guidelines), and (c) digital accessibility guidelines as explained in section 3.…”

“…The increasing digital nature of audiovisual products, the high relevance of accessibility within the audiovisual media landscape, and the lack of a defined value chain for these services (European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services [ERGA] 2016) calls for alignment of audiovisual access services with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), in their current version 2.1 or future ones, as pointed out by Bernabé and Orero (2019;forthcoming).…”

“…Until today, there is no common definition of cognitive accessibility (Johansson 2016), although it has been studied from many perspectives such as linguistics (Siddharthan 2014;Arfé, Mason & Fajardo 2017), web accessibility and digital inclusion (Sevilla, Martínez & Alcantud 2007;COGA 2018), inclusion (Verdugo & Schalock 2010), education (Vived & Molina 2012;Belinchón, Casas, Díez & Tamarit 2014), information design (Johansson 2016), computer science (Shardlow 2014), accessible cities (CEAPAT 2015), and e-learning (Olivetti Belardinelli 2008). In the field of AVT, new so-called easy-to-understand (E2U) or easy services are now being described (Bernabé & Orero 2019).…”