Introduction and background

"Bonus features not captioned"

"There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why?
I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”—Robert F. Kennedy

“Bonus features not captioned” was a label commonly applied to the jacket of Hollywood movie DVDs. Imagine the uproar if, instead, the label said “Main feature not captioned”. This would be headline news. And yet, with per-hour professional captioning costs being measured in the hundreds of dollars, and Hollywood movie profits being measured in the millions of dollars, it was common practice. “Bonus features not captioned” equates to saying to deaf customers “Here is half the product, at the same full price”. This situation persisted without newspaper articles, without social uproar, no protests in the street, no interviews of cultural leaders on prime time news.

There were those who raised the issue though. People in the disability community, and people working in organizations promoting the inclusion of people with disabilities, and others kept prodding the entertainment industry. Today, when you pick up a Blu-ray disc of the latest major film release, you are likely to find that the director’s commentary, trailers, and other bonus features included with your purchase are all captioned. There has been a sea-change in attitudes in the entertainment industry. While captions are still not fully ubiquitous there has been marked improvement, and it has come about as a result of pressure from the disability community.

Are we all good now?

Well, no.

Providing captioning for general release movies has been a requirement under US law for decades. The captions exist as formatted electronic text, and there are systems in place to show captions individually to movie theatre patrons. The same electronic text in the captions file is added to the DVD release of the movie. When streaming video services took over from DVDs as the primary means of movie delivery to households, the formatted captions were, of course, in existence. Netflix, which started offering streaming video in 2007, was sued four years later by the National Association of the Deaf (NAD):

“We have tried for years to persuade Netflix to do the right thing and provide equal access to all content across all platforms. They chose not to serve our community on an equal basis; we must have equal access to the biggest provider of streamed entertainment.”—NAD President Bobbie Beth Scoggins, 2011.

But wait, there’s more…

Descriptive Video Service (DVS) is captioning’s lesser-known younger brother. DVS adds an available audio track for movies, and in this audio track visual events are announced for the benefit of people who have low vision or who are blind. The announcements are made in the gaps in the dialogue. For example,

Ricky “What have you got there? That’s amazing!”

DVS: [Bobby stands in the doorway with a soldier’s sabre in his hand].

Bobby “Let’s go try it out, Ricky!”

DVS allows people with visual impairments to go to the movies with their sighted partners: is Bobby holding a board game, a radio controlled car, or a sword, and is this important to know to make sense of the dialogue and follow along with the plot?

In movie theatres, DVS is typically delivered as a single mono audio track that is picked up with headphones. Like alternate language tracks (Spanish, German, Korean), a DVS track is just a file. And, in the same way that captioning is required for general release movies, DVS is also required in movie theatres by law.

So you’d think that the DVS track would get added to the DVD release of movies. Unfortunately, it was common practice not to, even though the audio track file was readily available. (Like the bonus feature captioning, DVS is now commonly added to Blu-Ray movie releases as a matter of course.) And, you’d think that services like Netflix would deliver the available DVS file in addition to the captions. After all, they go hand in hand, and are both about providing “equal access to all content across all platforms”.

Unfortunately, no. It was not until April 2015 that Netflix announced they would be carrying DVS. This wasn’t the result of a lawsuit, but it did come after continued prodding from the disability community. Thirty years after DVS was invented, the most popular video streaming company was finally including it as part of their regular service offerings.

Are we all good now?

Well, no.

Netflix happens to be the biggest player in the streaming video market. Other streaming services are increasingly offering captioning, and the number of streaming services offering DVS is small but growing. But, few providers offer one or both of these from the beginning when they first introduce their streaming services. It seems most have to be politely told, then firmly told, and occasionally they have to be legally bound.

So, Blu-Ray discs now typically come with DVS audio tracks. Great for consumers who have low vision. But do Blu-Ray video players typically have talking menus so they can be used by those same consumers to access that content? No.

And Netflix typically streams DVS audio tracks. Great for consumers who have low vision. But do Netflix applications on set top boxes typically have talking menus so they can be used by those same consumers to access that content? No. (Do set top boxes themselves typically have talking menus? No.)

Consumers with visual impairments have to rely on using their computers to play content with DVS, because the mainstream players are not accessible to them. In other words, they have to use different systems to those used by their sighted family members in the same household.

The inaccessibility of the players, and sub-par delivery of the available DVS and captioning content, are not due to technological challenges. They are the result of poor implementation of policies, and poor design choices by people working in mainstream technology development.

What can we learn from this one story?

As RFK asked: “Why not?”

We don’t live in a world (yet) where accessibility is baked in as a standard practice. Prodding is needed. Who is going to do the prodding? Who will get agitated to the point of politely, firmly, and legally asking the questions about things that are required for equitable access to technology?

We sometimes read about lawsuits being brought against technology providers. Lawsuits are typically regarded as the last resort, coming after protracted periods of communications and structured negotiations. Those who bring the suits have limited resources to work on individual issues, so it is the issues with the widest impact to the most people that are focused on. This includes things like access to technology used in educational settings (e.g., electronic book readers), in getting to and from work (e.g., ticket machines), in banking (e.g., ATMs), and so forth. Is entertainment essential? Some would argue for or against, but when the technology for access is readily available but not implemented, as it was for captioning and DVS, legal actions should be expected. But someone, somewhere, has to start the ball rolling.

Making change

There are plenty of mainstream technologies that remain inaccessible, even though the technological challenges to make them accessible appear to be trivial. The hardest part of making change is getting to the person(s) who actually make the physical and programming changes to the product in question. These are typically programmers and developers, and they take their orders from their bosses. Their bosses are managers in mainstream technology companies. They take their orders from the executives in charge of the company. Thus, change that is initiated at the consumer level has to go through various levels up, until it finds approval at the executive level, and gets implemented at the developer level:

The levels in the above figure aren’t intended to be absolute, as there are variations in the layers depending on the situation and the particular technology in question. Sometimes the levels are one and the same (a technology company could provide services and also have retail outlets). However, these levels show who can be involved in the ‘push for change’ and thus each can be considered ‘change makers’.

This sort of push for change is what caused bonus features on DVDs and Blu-Ray discs to become captioned, and streaming media companies to offer DVS audio tracks in addition to other available languages. Even though the technology of captioning and DVS was readily available, this sort of industry change took a very long time, and for many of the people involved, the journey was quite an arduous one.

This guide is intended for consumers, and provides the pros and cons of approaching various types of change maker as the message filters up to reach the people who actually decide on making technology changes. The only way that change actually happens to benefit the consumer with a disability is if the course of change reaches the top level and consequently affects the design of products ultimately purchased by consumers. We wrote this guide with the hope of helping to speed up and smooth out the process of change.