My client’s goals

My end client, an athletic brand, wanted to make the videos in their fitness app accessible to users who cannot hear or require captions to help them better understand what is said.

Subtitles for d/Deaf and Hard-of-hearing audiences (SDH) not only transcribe speech but provide additional information in brackets about sounds, tone and speaker names. This can also be useful to people who have the sound on low or are working out in a busy environment, like a gym.

My client came to me due to my experience and in-depth training in SDH. I aim to create captions that give d/Deaf users the opportunity to enjoy the content just as much as hearing viewers and strive to make the best captions I can as a hearing person by listening to the d/Deaf community’s needs and improving my SDH accordingly.

Challenges and solutions

• Creating SDH for workout videos is inherently tricky because of the way the user will be consuming the content. They are likely to be bouncing around their living room, looking at the ground during burpees, for example, and not always focusing on the screen. I had to keep these distractions in mind when transcribing and choosing what sounds to describe, making sure the subtitles were on screen for enough time during particularly lively segments that could be trickier for viewers to follow.

• As many of the videos were yoga or Pilates routines, where breath is an integral part of the practice, it was important to distinguish between intentional breathing that should be tagged to guide viewers and that which could be left out to avoid overwhelming the viewer with captions. I also had to keep in mind that viewers may wish to close their eyes during these routines, so subtitles should be slower and on screen for longer in case anything important was missed.

• In fast-paced workout videos, the trainers often speak very quickly to energise and motivate viewers. It was tricky to shorten the dialogue by deciding on the most important information to include in the trainer’s instructions. It was also important to reflect the casual language used by the trainers. For example, opting for “gonna” instead of “going to” while always ensuring the subtitles were readable of course.

• Yoga, Pilates and fitness workouts use very specific syntax and terminology to describe poses, breathwork and exercises. I practise yoga several times a week, so I’m familiar with the type of language used. This proved valuable for ensuring consistency in capitalisation and recognising specialised terms during the transcription.

The result

My client came back to me several times from 2022 to 2024 to work on SDH for this app. It is important to work with someone who appreciates the needs of d/Deaf and Hard-of-hearing viewers. There is a lot of poor SDH out there, particularly that made automatically by AI, which is difficult to follow and therefore excludes the d/Deaf community. Having the option to turn on readable SDH that considers what is going on at each moment means that viewers will be able to participate more equally and get the most out of their workout. This also benefited the end client as they are now less likely to give up on their workout and cancel their subscription.