The Ongoing Evolution of Standards to Meet the Needs of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

The recent publication of ISO 9241-171, ISO 9241-20, and the User Needs Summary of the ISO/IEC JTC1 Special Working Group on Accessibility (SWG-A) each provide guidance and understanding to support the needs of users with disabilities and improve the accessibility of technology. These documents, among others, provide new understanding of accessible computing systems for all users. However, the focus of guidelines to support accessible design has typically been towards users with text disabilities. The needs of other groups have not always been addressed to the same degree. Two populations of users whose needs and expectations have historically been poorly understood are users who are deaf and users who are hard of hearing (HH). This paper briefly explores the history and evolution of guidance on accessible software design to support the full inclusion of deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) users with an emphasis on documents produced by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).