Considerations for Auditory Accessibility

On a larger scale, the basics of auditory accessibility include making sure that there are transcripts for audio-only files, and closed captions available for multimedia files such as video.

In addition, a sign-language interpretation for multimedia is a nice touch when possible (though not required) as people who communicate primarily through sign language might not always have the reading speed to keep up with the speed of captions.

An underlying principle to keep in mind with digital platforms such as websites or apps is not to use audio alone to capture attention. Alarms should have visual elements as well, and telephones/telephone numbers shouldn’t necessarily be assumed or required (though with the multiple functions of smartphones, this consideration is a little less important than in the past, as more people with some degree of hearing loss are more likely to have a smart phone and use texting options these days).

Finally, in order to make your work understandable to those with some degree of hearing loss, having no background audio, having background audio that can be turned off, or keeping the main audio at least more than 20 decibels louder than background audio are good practices.^[1]