How can online Auslan videos be made more accessible for deafblind people?
This question is now included in the new Auslan Translation Guidelines 2026, developed by Deaf Australia with support from ACCAN. Deafblind Victoria was proud to be part of the project consortium, alongside Deafblind Australia, Deaf Connect and Expression Australia.
This is an important step forward. The original Auslan Translation Guidelines were published in 2015 and only considered the needs of sighted Deaf Auslan users. The new 2026 guidelines include the experiences of deafblind Auslan users with low vision for the first time.
Deafblind people who use Auslan can face many barriers when watching videos online. Videos may be too fast, the background may not have enough contrast, captions may be too small, or the signer may be hard to see. Some deafblind people can watch Auslan videos independently, but may need to watch in short bursts because of eye strain.
Tactile Auslan-users were not consulted for this project, but they may use a CommGuide or interpreter to access Auslan videos.
The new guidelines give practical advice for people making Auslan videos. This includes using clear contrast, good lighting, slower signing, shorter videos, captions that do not block the signer, plain English summaries, transcripts, and visual descriptions. These changes are not only helpful for deafblind people. They can make Auslan videos clearer and easier to understand for many Deaf and hard of hearing people too.
DBV thanks the deafblind people who shared their time, experience and expertise for this project. Their input helps show that accessibility must be built in from the start, not added later.
You can read the new documents here:
- download guidelines (PDF): Auslan Translation Guidelines 2026
- download guidelines (Word): Auslan Translation Guidelines 2026
- download report (PDF): Fortifying the 2015 Auslan Translation Guidelines
- download report (Word): Fortifying the 2015 Auslan Translation Guidelines