NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #18/NN_1992_18.iso/spool/misc/handicap/5907

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-12 | 3.6 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!usc!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!olivea!isc-br!bunker!hcap!hnews!104!809.0!Karen.Keil
From: [e-mail] (Karen Keil)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: SHHH report 2 of 13
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Date: 12 Aug 92 21:31:58 GMT
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X-Fidonet: Silent Talk Conference

Index Number: 23908

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

Part 2 of the SHHH Convention ---Cedar Rapids, Iowa

June 26, 1992

The day started off with a disappointment.  After wrongly setting
my Shake-Awake alarm for 6:45 p.m. instead of 6:45 a.m., I woke
up at 8:45 a.m. and missed one of the reasons I came to Cedar
Rapids for---the keynote speech of Henry Kisor, author of WHAT'S
THAT PIG OUTDOORS?.  I came to the general assembly just in time
to miss the whole speech and to hear Rocky Stone say that it was
a small world...Henry Kisor's grandfather was his supervisor at
the CIA, a government agency.

But not all was lost....I saw Henry Kisor in the hallway of the
hotel and in the lobby so at least the chance was gotten to see
him, if not the speech!

One of the SHHH staffers, Lori Ropa, was able to get his
autograph signed in her copy of his book.  She said that if I
left my name and address, SHHH may be able to send me a
transcript of his speech (which I did).  The Cedar Rapids Gazette
(June 27, 1992, page 1B) covered Kisor's speech under the
headline, DEAF AUTHOR RELATES STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE.  [If
anyone is interested in the newspaper article, I can post a copy
on the echo, with due credit to the paper.]

Afterwards, I participated in a Captioning Study/Survey on the
5th floor of the Five Seasons Center.  They had us evaluate two
sets of captions on two different TVs to indicate which we liked
better.  They used clips from popular TV shows like Murphy Brown
and Nova for the tests. Among the techniques they were
trying were:

      --the captions located where the
speaker(s) were versus having them at the bottom.

     --the captions prefaced with the name
of the speaker.

     --Moving the captions all over the screen
depending on what the screen is showing to show least cover-up of
the action.

     --Changing the background box to traditional black,
other opague colors--blue, etc., semi-transparent, transparent (no
box, just letters placed on the scene).

     --Varying the colors of the caption letters

     --Varying the caption typefonts

I liked the semi-transparent boxes and some of the new typefonts.
Some of the typefonts made it harder to read while others were
more readable.  All the different techniques were
enlightening---we don't have to accept black background boxes and
block type letters for captioning!

They also asked about other features--size, etc. and whether we
wanted to have the option of changing them on the TV along with
the other features above, and whether we wanted everything
(verbatim) or just the gist (simplified captions).

They passed out buttons saying, 'I'm helping to improve TV
Captioning' with the words 'Caption Format Research Project'
underneath a picture of a TV.  In addition, they gave out entry
forms to win a caption decoder.

The one bad thing about the convention was that various things
were on different floors--the SHHH bookstore was on the 4th,
other things on the 5th, and so on. The workshops (most of them)
were on the 2nd floor.  Waiting for the elevator took some time.

To be continued----

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