Optimizing Accessibility Features for Deaf Community in Bilingual Videos: A User-Centered Design Analysis

Bilingual videos in Brazilian Sign Language/Portuguese are intended to provide access to information for deaf users through accessibility features such as captions and simultaneous translation. However, recent research has highlighted the potential benefits of incorporating visual stimuli and strategies, such as symbols, illustrations, icons, pictograms, and animations, to enhance information representation and facilitate content understanding for this user group. Accordingly, this study aims to analyze a bilingual video with a user-centered focus on accessibility features for deaf users. The methodological procedures involved a thorough literature review on user-centered design for the deaf, followed by a field analysis on YouTube to identify the most suitable video for investigation. The selected video was evaluated by the researchers using a model for assessing the design of bilingual educational resources, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with two deaf users to elicit their perceptions of the video’s accessibility features. The results revealed that the accessibility features, such as captions and simultaneous translation, were deemed sufficient for users to comprehend the information presented. However, feedback from the participants suggested potential areas for improvement in the layout and organization of the video to enhance its accessibility. The findings of this study have implications for the design of bilingual educational resources and the development of user-centered approaches to enhance accessibility for the deaf community.