Access to Emergency Alerts for People with Disabilities

Marcia Brooks The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH

26th NENA Annual 9-1-1 Conference and Trade Show June 12, 2007

In this presentation

…

• • • The Media Access Group and the National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH Access to Emergency Alerts and related grant projects: Accessible Digital Radio, On-Screen Info, In-Flight Entertainment FCC updates: WARN Act, EAS rules, emergency captioning rules

The Media Access Group at WGBH

The Caption Center (est. 1971)

• Developed the world’s first television captioning system • • Captioned first local/national news and children’s programs Now captions 10,000+ hours/year of broadcast & cable TV, feature films, large-format & IMAX films, home videos, music videos, DVDs, CD-ROMs, and teleconferences

The Media Access Group at WGBH

Descriptive Video Service ® - DVS (est. 1990)

• Audio description of key visual elements in a program that a viewer who is visually impaired would ordinarily miss • WGBH creates DVS for public, commercial and cable television. More than 180 major home video releases are currently available with DVS.

• Described DVDs are in over 1600 public libraries in the U.S.

The Media Access Group at WGBH

MoPix ® (Motion Picture Access)

• Makes movie theaters fully accessible to audiences with vision or hearing disabilities • 100 films accessible annually via closed captions, 60% are also described • Over 300 MoPix theatres in the U.S.

The WGBH National Center for Accessible Media

NCAM (est. 1993)

• Research and development facility • Supports national policy decisions • Develops technical solutions • Advances standards development • Conducts research • Promotes advocacy via outreach

NCAM resources, to name a few

• CC for Flash enables developers to easily add captions to Web Flash video content • MAGpie (Media Access Generator), free student and teacher-friendly captioning software • Published “Accessible Digital Media Guidelines for Electronic Publications, Multimedia and the Web” • Strategic Partners Program

Access to Emergency Alerts for People with Disabilities

• Three year grant, funded by U.S. Department of Commerce’s Technology Opportunities Fund - concludes September 2007 • Awarded to NCAM for its legacy in uniting consumer and industry to influence policy, standards, and technology on behalf of people with sensory disabilities

Access Alerts participation

• National advisory board includes national and state consumer advocacy organizations, NOAA/NWS, Mass. Emergency Management Agency • National working group includes state and municipal emergency management personnel, providers of notification services and equipment, and others

Access Alerts working group site

www.incident.com/access

• Consumer and social science research • Draft information requirements, drawn from existing authoritative works and working group: – National Science and Technology Council “Red Book” report on “Effective Disaster Warnings” – OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee warning format requirements – World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Accessibility Guidelines

Access Alerts draft information requirements

• • • Be compatible with various transmission systems Provide warning message details in:   Audio and text form Image or other visual form  Multiple languages Use multiple forms of presentation appropriate to needs of individual recipients • Make appropriate use of font size, foreground/ background color and other visual attributes in image and text • Use appropriate language for comprehension by the at-risk audience • Allow extension of info format to meet future needs • Facilitate delivery of message to all recipients thru multiple channels

Access Alerts local EAS accessibility concept demo

• DTV datacasting transmission of sample EAS RMT accessible message (QuickTime movie of bilingual audio/text, video ASL) • Used free and low cost authoring tools • Triggered variety of alerting devices • Used Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) to facilitate interoperability across disparate systems

Access Alerts consumer focus groups

Round 1, January 2006: • How emergency messages are received • The content and usefulness of messages • Satisfaction and/or frustration with above • Ideal delivery mechanisms and message content

Access Alerts consumer focus groups

Participants self-identified as tech-savvy and non-tech savvy: • Hard-of-hearing and late-deafened • Deaf and hard of hearing • Blind and visually impaired • Deaf-blind

Access Alerts consumer focus groups

Round 2, February 2007 with deaf, hard of hearing and blind consumers: • Tested five emergency messages representing varied scenarios and contexts • Weighed aspects of credibility and utility for each • Successful messages will have both

Access Alerts usability testing

The final sequential round of consumer testing, building on learning from focus groups: • Develop message content • Test efficacy of messages on various devices • Test efficacy of devices to learn what’s working and what could be improved

Access Alerts social science research

• Disabled individuals do not understand, believe, personalize, or respond to warnings differently from non-disabled individuals • Social networks relay warning messages, confirm disasters, convey information on risk, etc.

• To the extent that some disabled individuals may be isolated, without strong social connections, they may miss the warning, information on the disaster and the risk it poses, and other cues that might help them understand, believe, personalize, and respond to a warning

Access Alerts social science research

• The same thing may happen to non disabled individuals, but isolation may be more common among the disabled and the elderly • In general, however, the impacts of warning source, message, context and of recipient demographics and experience should be the same or very similar regardless of disability

Access Alerts social science research

• While disability may complicate the receipt of warning messages and make it more difficult to pick up important cues concerning the hazard and the responses of others… • …most of the variables affecting the understanding, belief, personalization, and response to warnings is the same for all.

Source : “Access To Warnings by the Sensory Disabled Community”, William L. Waugh, Jr., Professor, Georgia State University

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Access Alerts - what can be done now

Involve consumers in drills and training sessions Make subscription sign-ups for alerts accessible Include accessibility as a requirement in bids and contracts with providers of notification equipment and services Explore creation of template accessible messages

Access Alerts - what ’ s ahead

• • • • • Conduct and publish usability testing research Potential emergency alerting pilot projects at state/municipal level Coordinate with NCAM’s “Access to Locally Televised On-Screen Information” project Continue development of information requirements and repository Publish recommendations to Federal government, industry, emergency management and media

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Access to Locally Televised On-Screen Information

Exploring solutions to enable local TV stations to convey both emergency and non-emergency information, conventionally displayed on the screen, to meet the needs of people with sensory disabilities Develop prototype software utilities that import data from various sources, then extract, transform and prepare it for text display or for speech output

On-Screen example of current practice

On-Screen solution: captions and DVS

Accessible Digital Radio Broadcast Services

• • Grant awarded to National Public Radio (NPR) and NCAM by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Institute of Disability Rehabilitation and Research Three-year research and development project to prototype, field test and assess the cutting-edge radio technologies to serve the needs of people with sensory disabilities

Accessible Digital Radio Broadcast Services

• • The overall goal is to guide the design of prototype digital radios for evaluation by consumers with special needs Design criteria -- to be developed with input from a representative cross section of disabled consumers -- will be turned over to receiver manufacturers as best operating practice

Making In-Flight Communications and Entertainment Accessible

• • Three-year grant from U.S. Department of Education to make airline entertainment, communications and information accessible to flyers with sensory disabilities Solutions and resulting recommendations will include integration of captioning for video and audio, descriptive narration for visual images and audio navigation for system menus and interface design

Making In-Flight Communications and Entertainment Accessible

Accessible menu

Making In-Flight Communications and Entertainment Accessible

Captioned movie

Making In-Flight Communications and Entertainment Accessible

Captioned TV

FCC - WARN Act/CMSAAC

• • • Warning, Alert, and Response Network Act enacted on October 13, 2006 Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee (CMSAAC) established within 60 days of enactment Purpose: develop a unified national warning system -- establish standards, protocols, procedures, other technical requirements and associated FCC rules to enable CMS providers that voluntarily elect to transmit emergency alerts to subscribers

FCC - CMSAAC participation

• Among many subject experts the WARN Act calls for, “national organizations representing individuals with special needs, including individuals with disabilities and the elderly” • These consumers’ needs are addressed in the User Needs Group (UNG) • Other working groups • Program Management (PMG) • Alerting Gateway (AGG) • Alerting Interface (AIG) • Communications Technology (CTG )

FCC - CMSAAC User Needs Group

• Define emergency message format, addressing non-English speaking users and special needs groups • Make recommendations for • consumer subscription management • consumer notifications re: full, partial and non-participating service providers • consumer education

FCC - CMSAAC User Needs Group

• Accessibility considerations for CMAS text service for consumer profiles including: • deaf/hard of hearing • blind/low vision • cognitive • manual dexterity • elderly • Recommend use of unique attention audio signals and vibration patterns for CMA messages

FCC - CMSAAC User Needs Group

• Use of Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) supports the transmission of audio, video, text, images and Web URL's, but CMAS will initially be text-based • Text-only especially raises concern for ways to accommodate people who are blind/visually impaired • UNG coordinating with CTG to consider how CMAS infrastructure may accommodate alternate distribution of text for services such as ASL and text-to-speech

FCC - CMSAAC/WARN Act Timeline

• • • • • Enacted on October 13, 2006 CMSAAC formed within 60 days of WARN enactment Iterative draft recommendations from working groups to PMG this summer CMSAAC submits system-critical recommendations to FCC within one year of WARN Act enactment Within 180 days of CMSAAC recommendations, FCC completes proceeding to adopt relevant technical standards and requirements to enable CMS providers to transmit emergency alerts to subscribers

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FCC - Emergency Alert System (EAS)

On May 31, the Commission adopted a Second Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Requires Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) no later than 180 days after FEMA Governors may now initiate EAS messages Use of CAP will help ensure transmission of EAS alerts in a variety of formats via multiple distribution platforms, further benefiting people with disabilities and non-English speakers

FCC - Emergency Captioning Rules

• The FCC requires that video programming distributors that provide emergency information do so in a format that is accessible to people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or have low vision • Emergency information provided in the audio portion of the programming must be provided using closed captioning or other methods of visual presentation, such as open captioning, crawls, or scrolls that appear on the screen

FCC - Emergency Captioning Rules

• Emergency information must not block any closed captioning, and closed captioning must not block any emergency information • Effective January 1, 2006, most television broadcast stations located in the top 25 television markets must close caption their emergency information and breaking news reports, rather than making the information "visually accessible."

Web sites

The Media Access Group at WGBH

access.wgbh.org

The WGBH National Center for Accessible Media

ncam.wgbh.org

Access to Emergency Alerts Project

www.incident.com/access ncam.wgbh.org/alerts

Accessible Digital Media Design Guidelines

ncam.wgbh.org/publications/adm/

FCC Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Comm.

www.fcc.gov/pshs/cmsaac/Welcome.html