While equality means different things to different individuals, common themes appear among our opinions about the topic.
These include access, opportunities and discrimination:
Equality to a deaf person means being able to access the same opportunities available to their hearing peers without discrimination.
Not only are there accessibility laws for deaf people in the physical world, such as the right to request CART and interpreters and other reasonable accommodations, deaf people have the right to digital accessibility.
You would think digital accessibility would be easy for companies to accommodate, right?
True, but many don’t. Instead, they make excuses so they don’t have to change what they’re doing.
Before the Internet came along, deaf people relied on TTYs and snail mail. They’d even drive long distances to their deaf friend’s houses and wave at the window to get their attention! If they’re not home, they’d write a note and leave it at the door before driving back home.
Once the Internet came along, deaf people began using email to communicate with each other. They still used TTYs to make phone calls, however. In the 1990s, it was “cool” to only check your email once a day, or even better, once or twice a week. But once we passed the year 2000, if you only checked your email once a day, you’d quickly get left behind on the latest news, upcoming events, and even gossip.
Did you know that only about 2% of people with hearing loss regularly wear hearing aids?
Beyond Tone would like to extend the perspective that being deaf is perfectly normal.
So why do we not like wearing hearing aids sometimes?
Is it the stigma?
In 2017, the mainstream audience has an abundance of technological options when it comes to user experience. Deaf people’s options are more limited, especially when the technology leans heavily towards audio-only input and output.
A few examples of audio-based technology include iPhone’s Siri, podcasts and new streaming video platforms that lack closed captioning.
