The group that represents radio reading services, the International Association of Audio Information Services, hopes to see accessible features in future HD Radios.
To that end, the IAAIS has released accessibility standards for IBOC tuners to give to receiver manufacturers, should they want to incorporate the new features.
The idea is to include features to help blind and visually-impaired individuals use the radios. The IAAIS hopes to get the features designed into the models from inception, rather than try to change the human-machine interface “so far down a design path that reasonable accommodation becomes an unreasonable expense,” according to Dave Noble, chair of the IAAIS HD Radio Task Force.
We’ll have more on the standards in an upcoming issue of Radio World.
