RNID: For deaf and hard of hearing people.

The method of communication that you use depends very much on the situation, as well as on your abilities and preferences.

These days, there is a whole range of different services available. Some of these are conversational and allow real-time, direct communication with the other party, such as face-to-face dialogues, telephone voice calls and videoconferencing. Others are based on messages, like letters, emails or SMS messages.

Most of the time these different modes are complementary, rather than substituting for one another. No hearing person in their right mind would propose to abolish voice telephony because of the existence of other communication channels like IM or email. It is not about either one or the other.

Interactive texting

This principle of choosing the appropriate type of communication depending on context and abilities explains why interactive texting (text telephony) is so important for for deaf, hard of hearing and speech impaired people. People who cannot communicate by voice have traditionally used interactive, character-by-character texting alternatives, with traditional textphones as the oldest example. But for interactive texting to be a true equivalent of what voice is for hearing people, it must offer equivalent features when they have conversations.

When you have a voice conversation with someone it is characterised by a number of features:

  • Information flows in real time (at least from the user's perspective, even if technically speaking this is only almost real-time).
  • You can interrupt/barge in at any stage in the conversation.
  • Communication is at least two-way.

Interactive texting offers a character-by-character based, real-time interaction. So, everything that is typed will appear immediately on the screen at the other end and vice versa.

Because of the importance of interactive texting for deaf and hard of hearing people, RNID’s New Technologies team has been working very hard to make sure that this technology becomes more widely available.

Making them talk to each other

A key objective for our New Technologies team is to improve how different communication platforms used by deaf and hard of hearing people work together.

Different text based systems often don’t talk to each other very well so we’re working with the rest of the industry to integrate various forms of text communication.

We're also trying to develop character-by-character communication as a mainstream service on all kinds of devices and networks, such as:

  • mobile phones
  • personal computers 
  • the next generation of landline phones.

TalkByText is a one of our software solutions for Windows, mobile devices and the Web. It allows people to communicate in real-time text over the Internet.

Although it uses the latest in internet technology, TalkByText continues to support existing analogue textphones. This is vital as, in today’s society, being able to communicate effectively is so important. As such, the award winning TalkByText software will be key in breaking down barriers to communication and will provide an opportunity and solution for deaf, hard of hearing and speech impaired people.

Regulation and standards

We are working hard to make sure that deaf and hard of hearing people have the best access to text based telephony in the future. We are pushing for tough regulations that make phone companies provide better access to text communication for all.

We are also working with organisations like the International Telecommunications Union and the Internet Engineering Task Force to develop standards that support the needs of deaf and hard of hearing people, and to see these result in real applications. This should make society a more equal place for deaf and hard of hearing people by reducing any barriers they face to free communication with everyone.

Further information

You can find out more by contacting us by email at ict@rnid.org.uk.