Thank you for your interest in what we are doing to make our programs and services more accessible. Any comments listed below were provided during the public comment period prior to the publication of the initial final Five-Year Accessibility Plan. Each year we will be posting a Progress Report, so check back.
3 Responses
Hearing loss affects two-thirds of those over 75 and the percentage increases with each year. This statement needs to address the need for captioning as an essential means of access for older New Yorkers. All videos should have open captions. In-person events should have a live captioner with captions projected on a screen. The vast majority of those with hearing loss (around 96%) do not use ASL, so captioning is essential.
This comment is appropriate for every city agency, but the Department of Aging in particular.
The plan notes that DFTA will insure accessibility in all of its older adult centers. Accessibility for people with hearing loss is particularly important for the consumers DFTA serves given the high incidence of hearing loss (and untreated hearing loss) in this population. Any video shown in a center should have open captions. In person events should have captioning availalbe; it can be provided successfully remotely. All OAC’s should have assistive listening devices available. Best practice would be for any large room used for classes/presentations to be outfitted with a wide area listening device to make access easy.
According to the 2022 American Community Survey there are approximately 424,720 residents in NYS who are blind or visually impaired, and 215,466 are NYC residents. Also, the Eye Disease Prevalence Research Group reports blindness and low vision increase significantly with age. Its very important that all city agencies but especially the Department for the Aging, make all their platforms accessible to blind or visually impaired users that require assistive technologies such as screen readers or magnification software. This impacts both participants and staff that work for the city vendors.
This is particularly crucial as some of the client information systems are being upgraded/replaced e.g., VIVE. Its best practice to make the programming changes needed to any system’s fields during the design phase instead of after the fact. For example, adding alternate text description for fields, using labels for menus which improves navigation, etc.