Evaluation of captioning features to inform development of digital television captioning capabilities

With rapid advances in digital technology, the broadcast television industry will soon be providing cinema-quality sound and video in the home. Given this technological advance, how should captions change to better serve consumers who are deaf or hard of hearing? To address this question, consumer preference data were collected from 207 deaf students and adults. Videodisc examples of various captioning feature combinations were used to obtain ratings from these consumers. Findings from multivariate conjoint analysis show that some current captioning features should be retained (white letters and speaker-dependent placement), while other features should be adopted (captioning in sentences and use of a clear or semitransparent background). These findings offer guidance to the captioning and television industries as they launch the digital television age.