Web accessibility for deaf people – adding captions or providing transcripts isn’t always enough

If you search the web for information related to web accessibility for deaf people you will find plenty of advice about captioning or providing transcripts for web based audio and video material. What you are unlikely to find is much discussion related to accessibility and language; for many deaf people English is not their first language, Sign Language is.

Although Sign Language provides an equivalent for everything that can be spoken or written, understanding written English – for some deaf people – is a process of interpreting from English to their first language, i.e. Sign Language.

Writing simple language and short sentences can help to make information more accessible to Sign Language users.…