Open Captioning

Here’s the last chapter in our week about accommodating hearing loss.

Previous overview. Article on assistive listening.

(Repetitive but important point on accessibility law complexity below.)

For any audio-visual program, we must also offer that audio content in visual form.  And we all know closed captioning — that “CC” button that turns on text at the bottom of a screen.

But “open captioning” is the exhibition standard. That’s CC that’s permanent, aka “burned in,” and can’t be turned off. All our videos have to have it.

What’s amazing is who uses it:

- Deaf visitors
- Hard of hearing visitors
- Any visitor at all, if the space is noisy
- People with ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, or learning needs
- Non-native speakers
- Almost everyone

BTW, open captioning is everywhere — because so many people without hearing loss watch videos on social media with the sound turned off.

Here’s the thing:
Firstly: To accommodate our visitors with hearing impairments in our exhibitions, two key approaches to know about are assistive listening and captioning.

Lastly: The laws are complex, and exhibition projects are too. So make sure to keep learning. And always get advice from experts who know how to comply with the law.

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
Open captions. Text that's permanently included in a video to make it accessible to those with hearing impairments. Also known as "burned-in" or "embedded." They are always visible, and can't be turned off. Also common in social media videos.