New Samsung TVs Address Accessibility for People with Disabilities

As a professional reviewer, I’ve seen my fair share of tech product launches. But I can honestly say that Samsung’s 2021 first look was the first time a launch presentation brought tears to my eyes.

I’m also a member of the disability community, and at Samsung’s First Look event last week, I witnessed an encouraging example of great technology embracing all levels of ability, and to a great extent. . Samsung’s new QLED and Neo QLED TVs come with expanded accessibility features that let more people use the remote, search for content, and fully enjoy what’s on the screen. This initiative, called “Screens for All”, offers new settings that specifically benefit people with visual and hearing impairments. But like wheelchair ramps, closed captions and automatic steering, advancements that benefit the disability community often benefit all of us. (After all, everyone ends up suffering from a disability.)

So what are the accessibility features?

In a video released last week, Samsung described a number of features aimed specifically at the visually impaired, blind, hard of hearing and deaf. (Skip to 11:10 in the video for more on the topic.) And while that doesn’t meet everyone’s specific needs, it’s a promising start.

• Avatar in sign language: An on-screen avatar can even guide you through the functions of the TV.
• Closed captioning and position: Closed captions often appear at the bottom of the screen, and this is also where many programs tend to perform text like tickers or weather updates. Two lines of text on top of each other make it very difficult to read, but positioning the subtitles allows you to move the subtitles anywhere on the screen that makes the most sense for the current program. Closed captions can also be set to fill in automatically.
• Recognition of sign language: Sign language users will be able to interact with their TVs using sign language, as others may have used voice control.
• Voice guide: For the visually impaired, the voice guide identifies both the current channel and the volume level.
• See the colors: Far more advanced than a simple RGB adjustment, SeeColors performs a series of color blindness-focused vision tests to ensure that the colors on the screen best match what the viewer can see.
• High contrast: With a redesigned chipset, Samsung’s high contrast setting makes all menus easier to see without affecting the video itself.
• Learn remote control: A special program on the latest Samsung televisions will allow visually impaired users to learn what the remote control buttons do and where they are located. One press of the button and the television announces what the button is.
• Learning menu screen: As with learning the remote, the learning menu screen describes the menu layout and what the various selections do.
• Shades of grey: To refine text and images, the entire screen can be converted to black and white.
• Color inversion: Another way to increase visibility for some users is to invert the colors on the screen.
• Multi-output audio: Being hard of hearing no longer means that others in the house have to endure the howls of the television. Multi-output audio allows sound to be routed to both your soundbar and a Bluetooth headset, for example, at different volume levels.
• Enlarge: As the name suggests, this feature enlarges the text on the screen for easier reading.
• Audio description: Standard captioning is not enough. The audio description goes so far as to describe scenes and hand gestures so the listener can see the big picture.
• Zoom in sign language: Sign language users will be happy to know that another great accessibility feature is sign language zoom. This feature allows users to make the window’s sign language frame up to 200% larger for easier interpretation of signs and gestures.
• Remote control button repeat: For those with limited motor function, pressure and hold functions such as volume reduction and channel scrolling may move too quickly. This option slows down the scrolling to make it easier to stop in the right place.

Prioritize accessibility

Credit: Samsung

The World Health Organization estimates that in the world, more than 466 million people suffer from “crippling hearing loss” and more than 2.2 billion people who have some kind of visual impairment. As the world’s largest TV maker, with around 20% market share, Samsung is uniquely positioned to effectively impact the disability community.

Many of the features described by Samsung were already available on previous models, and some, like the ability to customize closed captions, are common to many brands. Some, however, particularly automatic captioning, sign language recognition, and voice guidance, are newer and were developed directly with the Royal National Institute of Blind People and the visually impaired and deaf.

“At Samsung, we seek to provide them with the same level of visual experience as all of our consumers,” said JH Han, president of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics.

The First Look 2021 video includes some truly touching moments where people with various disabilities interact with the new features. The segment ends with Samsung engineer Byungho Kim, legally blind since 1995, who has been a force for inclusive design within the company on a variety of products, including screen readers, platform e-learning, washing machines and mobile devices.

“My life changed after I went blind,” Kim said in 2018. “I started to think more about how I could help others like myself. I have thought about ways to develop volunteer courses and programs and to make it easier for people with disabilities to use our products. This motivation made me a better person.

Slow but steady progress in accessibility

Credit: Samsung

The new accessibility settings will be available on all QLED and Neo QLED 2021 models, high-end models in the 2021 lineup that may prove out of reach for many customers.

Still, the shiny projector that Samsung chose to put on accessibility at a global press event looks like a big step forward. And with big companies like Samsung and Microsoft standardizing accessible design first, there’s hope that improved accessibility will become cheaper and more widely available in the coming years.

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