Hearing Loss Plus

Imagine depending on audio description to navigate the screen of videoconference meeting software. And then, someone drops a message in the chat. The message is audio described over top of whatever other audio information you are trying to access via voice description. It’s difficult enough just to hear with your hearing aids or cochlear implant and Bluetooth accessories; now this?

Or imagine people are courteously not using chat during a meeting but suddenly another notification sounds off from another feature of your device. Perhaps your phone is connected to your computer, something you value, except when in a videoconferencing meeting. Messages describing incoming calls or notifications are all going off while trying to engage in the discussion. Yikes! It’s hard enough without all the interference of conflicting access.

It would be great if all video conferencing software and my devices had a way to easily select what audio input I wanted to turn on and what would be muted. Then, I wouldn’t have to manually go through each notification app switching them off and on throughout the day.

The voice of the DeafBlind community is important. We want engineers to be aware of and understand our accessibility issues. If you’re reading this, put us on your radar. Reach out, and work with us. We know what we need and would love to be heard.