1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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 draft information requirements

12. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. On-Screen example of current practice

26. On-Screen solution: captions and DVS

27. 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

28. 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

30. 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

31. Making In-Flight Communications and Entertainment Accessible Accessible menu

32. Making In-Flight Communications and Entertainment Accessible Captioned movie

33. Making In-Flight Communications and Entertainment Accessible Captioned TV

34. 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

35. 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 )

36. 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

37. 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

38. 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

39. 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

40. 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

41. 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

42. 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."

43. 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