In an attempt not to just only complain, I’d like to mention a significant frustration I have with many videos I often find on the internet. I get that they are “videos” but often the authors don’t find the audio aspect important at all. Many videos, like this one only have music as the audio so that a blind listener has no idea what’s going on, or can’t hear the object of the video. Just 5 minutes ago I was trying to find out what the Segway miniPRO personal transporter sounded like, one of those blind quarks, but all the videos I could find only had meaningless techno music as audio.
Music in the background when speaking in a video is also annoying, especially when the person is trying to communicate something important the viewer and/or listener needs to know. authors may think it’s cool and/or makes the presentation less boring, but all it really does is add cognitive load to the experience. I’ve even heard podcasts, made by blind people, with background music while the person speaks; where the whole experience is audio, no video at all. I imagine it would be like if libraries had bright strobe lights on whenever people tried to read anything.
With our life styles accelerating more all the time, and the need to learn and understand more every day, I encourage everyone to consider how much cognitive load bling is adding to their presentations, and to consider that not everyone has all the senses and/or skills you might enjoy. The most important thing every human will ever do in their entire lives is to communicate understanding, let’s all try harder to communicate as completely as possible so that all of us can more easily understand more deeply.
Accessibility Insights 