There are over 50,000 users of British Sign Language (BSL) in the UK. BSL is very different to English. Making key information on your website available in BSL, or sending out important letters and other information to BSL users in signed form makes it properly accessible to this user group. RNID now offers an English-to-BSL service for this purpose.
In addition, local councils, national government, businesses and other organisations have a legal obligation under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) to make reasonable adjustment in order to be accessible. Providing important information to BSL users in BSL rather than English might be an essential part of meeting that legal obligation.
British Sign Language (BSL) is the first or preferred language of over 50,000 people in the UK. BSL was recognised as the 4th official British language in the UK in 2003. BSL is very different to English and people who have use BSL as a first language can struggle with written English, as it is a second language. BSL has no written form so the only way to present documents in BSL is through video.
Putting video material online or presenting a written communication in a video format needs to be done with care. There are technical challenges such as making sure the video encoding and compression uses an open, standards based format so that it can actually be viewed by everyone (as opposed to using proprietary, closed formats). Also, the quality of the BSL interpretation is of great importance, especially where content uses legal or other jargon. There are further practical issues in terms of distribution and presentation.
RNID Technology now offers a bespoke English-to-BSL service. We will work with you to understand your requirement and convert your English material into BSL, in a form that is suitable for your purpose and with the necessary quality control in terms of accuracy and linguistic quality.
For clips on the web, we will create clips with a level of compression and in a format that is most suited to your needs. We can also advise on how to put the material on your website. For BSL versions of letters and other written materials, we can supply the material in a wide variety of formats (CD, DVD, VHS, etc) and can also arrange for duplication and printing of packaging materials.
For more information and quotes, please contact:
RNID Technology
Telephone: 020 7296 8016
Textphone: 020 7296 8001 Ext 8016
Fax: 020 7296 8069
Email: technology@rnid.org.uk