Sound Is Not Enough: Captioning as Universal Design

Discover how quality captioning can expand audience reach and increase ROI

Captions are about much more than adding text to audio.

Sound Is Not Enough explores deafness, communication access, universal design, and quality captioning — and why captions and transcripts can benefit audiences far beyond deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

An estimated 466 million people worldwide live with disabling hearing loss. They represent a significant and often underserved audience, while millions more can benefit from captions and transcripts in different situations.

Drawing on my professional expertise and lived experience as a profoundly deaf person, the book examines both why communication access matters and how quality captioning can improve accessibility, audience experiences, and business outcomes.

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Dicsover the impact of captions

Nonfiction; 132 pages; author – Svetlana Kouznetsova; editor – Keith Morrill; cover design – Nik.

Simply adding captions is not enough. Quality matters.

Accuracy is important, but accuracy alone is not enough. Readability is another essential component of quality captioning. Captions may accurately represent what was said while still being difficult to follow because of poor formatting, timing, placement, line breaks, or presentation.

People who can hear may be able to rely on audio when captions are difficult to read or follow. People who rely on captions may not have that alternative.

That’s why captions and transcripts deserve the same attention to quality as audio, video, lighting, and other elements of the audience experience.

Quality captioning can improve communication access while also benefiting people beyond those with hearing disabilities — including people learning languages, people watching content in noisy or sound-sensitive environments, and others who find text easier to understand than audio.

This book is specifically tailored for:

• Visionary executives seeking to expand their audience reach and improve their customer experiences
• Forward-thinking business owners ready to make their products, services, communications, and media more accessible
• Creative media producers looking to make their content accessible and reach broader audiences
• Meticulous event organizers working to create more accessible experiences for their attendees
• Passionate educators committed to improving access to educational content and communication
• Responsible employers dedicated to creating more accessible workplace communication

Inside, you will discover:

• Myths and misconceptions about deaf and hard-of-hearing people — and why deafness is a spectrum
• My personal experiences with deafness, communication barriers, hearing technology, and access to auditory information
• Why captions and transcripts are essential communication access for many people with hearing disabilities
• How captions can benefit people beyond the deaf and hard of hearing community through universal design
• Uses for captions and transcripts across media, education, workplaces, events, and everyday communication
• Why accuracy alone is not enough — and why readability is another essential component of quality captioning
• Best practices for readability, timing, placement, formatting, and presentation
• Real-world examples of quality captioning for different types of auditory information
• How better communication access can expand audience reach and create better experiences for customers, employees, attendees, and viewers

Because sometimes, sound is not enough

My own experience with captions began long before I became an accessibility consultant.
I became deaf from meningitis at age two and grew up relying heavily on visual information for communication. I didn’t have access to captions until my father brought home a closed-captioning decoder when I was about 15 years old.

For the first time, I could follow television without depending on my family to tell me what I had missed. My hearing family also discovered that captions could be useful to them because English was not their first language.

Captions became especially valuable to me as I learned English, my third language. Being able to see unfamiliar English words on screen made it easier to understand what was being said and expand my vocabulary.

Years later, in 2007, I attended my hearing sister’s graduation and experienced live captioning at a mainstream event. Until then, I had mostly associated live captioning with events specifically for deaf and hard of hearing people. Seeing it provided at an event for a general audience made me realize that communication access should not be limited to deaf-specific spaces.

That experience broadened the way I thought about captions. I began researching captioning more deeply — not only as communication access for people with hearing disabilities, but also through the lens of universal design and the many ways captions can benefit broader audiences.

That research eventually led me to write Sound Is Not Enough: Captioning as Universal Design, first published in 2014, with the second edition released in 2022. In 2018, I also gave the TEDx talk How Captions Increase ROI and Audience for Media Creators, exploring the broader audience and business benefits of captioning.

Captioning has since become one of my areas of specialization within accessibility. Today, I advise businesses on captioning best practices through consulting and customized training, including why accuracy alone is not enough and readability is another essential component of quality captioning.

Let’s think outside the ears!

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Paperback (6×9 size): $37.67

The paperback edition is available exclusively through Blurb. It is NOT listed on Amazon.

E-Book (EPUB): $27.99

Enjoy the e-book version with the Apple Books app (iPhone).