Is it me, or is Type Talk and it’s new incarnation Text Relay, something that belongs to a bygone age?
I’m not being harsh here. What BT did in the 1980’s to develop text phones, and then in 1991 to launch the Type Talk service, were wonderful improvements for Deaf and Hard of Hearing telephone users. BT opened up lines of communication that did not exist, and did so funding the service themselves. I for one, will always be grateful for their consideration.
To their huge credit BT have supported Text Relay ever since.
The thing is, I’ve used Text Relay many times, and when it works well it does help me communicate. The trouble is, I can recall countless times that I have had to wait ages for an operator to explain to one business or another what Text Relay is, how it works, and its confidentiality. All too often, having jumped all those hurdles, the call receiver hangs up at the start of the conversation or soon afterwards because it takes so long to send a message they think I’ve hung up, and they just replace the receiver.
The other thing is, how often does a business choose to ring a Deaf or Hard of Hearing customer using Text Relay, even when they have this information? Rarely at best in my experience. Why is that? Is it a lack of thought, lack of understanding, or simply because they just don’t like using it?
BT did lots of training when it was launched – I’m left wondering if it forms part of the induction process and training anymore in the vast majority of UK based businesses.
Text Relay moved us a long way, but 21 years later, my question is – is this the best means now available to help Deaf and Hard of Hearing communicate with businesses and public services? Unsurprisingly, my answer to the question is no, and I’ll tell you why.
Technology is moving on at one heck of a pace, and we are about to enter a time when a significant number of business to customer transactions will be completed through payment systems loaded onto our mobile phones.
And yet, despite being on the threshold of this new payment era, most banks, building societies, insurance companies, utilities and many more, wont let me pay my accounts using any method other than through their tired and out-dated systems.
Quite often, those systems and processes hide behind the availability of Text Relay to tell me I can’t use text, email, twitter, facebook, videophone or live interpretation to converse with them. What was once a great enabler to communication is being used a barrier to change.
Thankfully, there are some beacons of great practice, and the AA and RAC are moving this agenda on in their business sector. I applaud them for their efforts. What I need as a deaf person, whose first language is British Sign Language, is for other business sectors to show willing too, and to recognise that excellence in customer service is about enabling me, the customer, to communicate in whatever way best suits me. I shouldn’t have to use technology that is now 21 years old!
But enough of what I think, what do you think? We would love to hear your thoughts and experiences, particularly if you have positive examples to share with us.
This article was first published on Sarah’s blog, The Hidden Disability: http://deafbiz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-hidden-disability.html
Sarah Lawrence is a Deaf business woman and director of Deaf Friendly Business Solutions, with over 14 years’ experience of working with the public sector and private businesses to improve access through tailor-made training packages. In 2011 she launched ‘SL First’, the first magazine in the UK that aims to promote lifestyle choices and information on accessible businesses directly to Deaf and hard of hearing audiences. In her spare time, Sarah enjoys playing golf, exotic beach holidays and quality time with family and friends. And dark ginger chocolate. You can also follow her on twitter: @deaffriendly1 and @SLFirstLtd
The Limping Chicken is supported by Deaf media company Remark!, provider of sign language services Deaf Umbrella, the Deaf training and consultancy Deafworks, the RAD Deaf Law Centre, and BID’s upcoming 5th anniversary performance by Ramesh Meyyappan on 12th October – don’t miss it!
Enjoying our eggs? Support The Limping Chicken:
The Limping Chicken is the world's most popular Deaf blog, and is edited by Deaf journalist, screenwriter and director Charlie Swinbourne.
Our posts represent the opinions of blog authors, they do not represent the site's views or those of the site's editor. Posting a blog does not imply agreement with a blog's content. Read our disclaimer here and read our privacy policy here.
Find out how to write for us by clicking here, and how to follow us by clicking here.
The site exists thanks to our supporters. Check them out below:
- BSL Zone: TV programmes in BSL for the Deaf community
- Deaf Umbrella: what support is available for deaf students?
- Bellman & Symfon: home alerting solutions, including the mobile phone transceiver!
- SignVideo: Instant BSL video interpreting online
- SignHealth: check out the BSL health library
- 999 BSL: call 999 in an emergency, in BSL
- Appa: Looking for RSLIs, TSLIs and CSWs, apply here!
- Signly: Adding BSL to websites
- Signworld: Learn BSL online!
- DCAL: world-class research into deafness, cognition and language
- Action Deafness: “A Deaf-Led Charity” – interpreting & community support services
- Sign Solutions: Instant access to Interpreters, training and BSL translation nationwide
- InterpretersLive: On demand BSL video interpretation
- Lipspeaker UK: specialist lipspeaking support
- BID: Deaf services, including advice and support, interpreting, employment and letters
- Performance Interpreting: BSL interpreting at concerts
- National Deaf Children's Society: The leading charity for deaf children
ls
October 15, 2012
Thanks for this article, not as a sign language user, but as a deafened person. We’ve made complaints for years (in the USA and also offered suggestions elsewhere) about the clearly “old” TTY system retained by some, the newer “captel” system due to its inadequacy for timely calls, important family and work conference calls, and variable quality (accuracy, lost connections, time lags), and other systems that are on offer.
Is something better than nothing? Not really, for full human communications, especially as the author says, with modern inclusive technologies.Our first choice is full quality verbatim text (STTR in the UK, CART is same in the USA) for all telephoning, it’s a world of difference. Sign language users like the videophones. With text, we have nothing equivalent.
Echoing that barriers must come down. Which technologies does the author prefer for businesses?
Lauren, founder of the CCAC, volunteer advocates (http://ccacaptioning.org)
barakta
October 15, 2012
Not helped by the fact that compared to USA and Australian relay services the UK one is still stuck in the dark ages. Last time I tried TalkByText it would silently fail so the other person and the operator got silence even though I thought I was still connected. Why don’t we have WebRelay which is reliable in the UK? There is no affordable web system with a fixed price – when I asked for work RNID as was told me we had to give them loads of info and they’d generate a price – not happening!
What is it with these non-standard 1800x prefixes? Michael Day of BT TextDirect told me in 2004 they’d be resolving them by 2008 to look like a regular phone number. It’s 2012 and we still have the sodding prefixes which hearies just ignore or don’t understand. The design is broken and it’s stupid to expect everyone else to conform to something so inherently and intrinsically broken. This is what makes me SO angry, I have engaged and engaged and engaged with BT to explain what *MY* biggest issue was and they simply don’t care and won’t fix it. If I could withdraw my custom from them in disgust I would.
The stupid prefixes and lack of web relay access means my employer has to pay £££ for an external BT line (or perhaps change their PBX, but I’m TOLD that’s impossible and I really did fight for that hard cos they can’t dial the stupid 18002 prefix from normal phones at my place so aren’t able to dial deaf people properly) and £££ for a textphone device for me which in my case is a minicom6000p cos I can’t type on most of the other ones without pain and Screenphones suck as pure minicoms. I still have a landline from BT despite preferring not to as it’s the least painful option for home as well.
I don’t accept incoming calls because too many people ignore the prefix and dial me by voice and yet again BT don’t use technology which exists (flagging) to identify if a call has come to me by TextRelay or not so I and other deafies have no way of knowing if someone has been willing/able to dial 18002 before my number or hasn’t or more commonly is a spammy phone spammer. While this makes phones harder it’s dropped my stress levels considerably as I simply ignore all incoming calls and I don’t end up with a dead line several times a week cos phones suck.
Almost ALL government organisations that we have to deal with and I am naming and shaming here NHS, HMRC, DWP INSIST on me using phones to communicate with them. None will use email or IM citing bullshit data protection (they can do it legally, I checked with the information commissioner’s office cos they define what is and isn’t secure not the law or ICO and accessibility means nothing) even though for me a phone isn’t secure either.
And less said about “Can’t you get someone to call for you”. No I bloody well can not. My SO is worse on phones than I am so I genuinely do not have anyone. I hate hate hate having calls “relayed” for me by friends and colleagues cos they always end up cutting me out of decisions and speaking for me and making decisions I wouldn’t make – I almost never do it. That’s not their fault, relaying is HARD and it is difficult to control the call so that the other caller is told to wait while the relayer asks for a decision from the deafie. It’s a skilled part of terping for a reason.
So yes, I agree that TextRelay is holding back other methods of communication and considered good enough irrespective of whether we individual deaf people find it usable or not.
Oops. I may have had a wee rant.
Tim
October 15, 2012
“Quite often, those systems and processes hide behind the availability of Text Relay to tell me I can’t use text, email, twitter, facebook, videophone or live interpretation to converse with them. What was once a great enabler to communication is being used a barrier to change.”
That hits the nail on the head. It has just become a lazy excuse to not do things better.
JF
October 15, 2012
I had the same problems as barakta when my new employer’s phone system was not compatible with Typetalk. It is, according to the IT team at work, difficult to resolve without some major PBX programming as Typetalk is operating on an analogue basis whereas the company’s telephone network is digital. However an engineer came up with a solution that was able to connect me via the company’s telephone network to, and from, hearing people. I am now a regular user of SignVideo as it opens up the world to me. I can make or receive calls from my desk or have an interpreter with me on my laptop in the meeting room. I am aware that this is no good for deaf people who do not use sign language but for me it is perfect. Even my family says it is quicker and more personal than Typetalk and they can speak to me normally rather than being told to slow down or stop to enable Typetalk to catch up with the typing! I wish I had this earlier.
barakta
October 15, 2012
I’ve no idea how hard it is to reprogramme our work’s PBX and cos of issues with congestion at my work site I had to have an external BT line put in specially for me cos it wasn’t possible to run TextRelay via any of work’s existing infrastructure.
I don’t sign well enough to use VRS and I don’t use voice carry over with TextRelay because of the delay in switching mode – that and reading+talking confuses my brain, I think better if I can read and type.
I would like IM to be something available to anyone operated by trained people who can type properly. I don’t use minicom numbers directly cos 90% of the time they don’t work and when they do you get someone who t y p e s l i k e t h i s which is deeply tedious and even more error prone.
Fortunately my friends and family are all competent users of email, SMS and IM as needed. There’s no excuse for organisations not to set up a web chat system, lots of tech places do and it works well.
O'Malley Communications
October 15, 2012
I bypass the usual Text Relay and use Text Relay Assist. It’s still problematic though as TRA won’t call a number more than twice if the line is engaged and they only wait 3 seconds before re-dialling. I have my textphone set up as a virtual phone but it’s rubbish at taking incoming calls – it’s far too slow at connecting so people hang up before they get through to me.
I used CapTel for 2 years in London and it was fantastic. No one even realised I am deaf and I had a job as a finance manager – lots of numbers and stressed people to call. It was just about perfect for me.
There is a telephony campaign to update the telephone systems for deaf users. Information and the campaign timeline is at http://funnyoldlife.wordpress.com/phones/
barakta
October 15, 2012
I can’t even dial TRA from work network, for some reason it blocks it and I never got to the bottom of it cos it was a spoken recorded message I could never hear… I find a proper minicom6000p and an analogue phoneline work as well as any text based system can with the current standards although concur with people above about the typing too slowly stuff.
CapTel was ace, a friend of mine used it heavily in a high end job and was devastated when it was withdrawn with no warning whatsoever as that has impacted badly on her career. I never used it myself as I was unemployed at that time but the idea of having the audio AND transcription appealed to be greatly as I may have been able to use voice for some of my calls.
I see from the telephony campaign that OfCom are consulting yet again, ignoring the responses and doing absolutely nothing. DAART are right that this is all they seem to have done since 2004. I wonder if deafies need to take some kind of group legal action against OfCom for this epic fail and incompetence cos they are a rotten organisation who are made of fail in many areas (a friend runs a brilliant telecoms/Internet company and finds OfCom can’t answer questions about their own regulations and requirements).
I lose patience with consultations cos I don’t feel I will be listened to. What’s the point of TAG and CoD and whoever else can’t get any sense out of anyone. It’s cheaper to consult for eternity and drown us all in waffle-ese than actually DO something.
What we need is for someone to get caselaw against an organisation for failing to provide non phone access – which is going to be hard cos most cases settle before caselaw is defined.
Roy
October 15, 2012
Fact It wasn’t BT who developed textphones in the 1980s. First was the Vistel then the Minicom. Text Relay wasn’t an incarnation its the same Typetalk just the rebrand. Not forgetting deafblind and hearing-speech-impaired are also users of text relay.
Rod
October 15, 2012
When I asked my workmates to do the telephoning on my behalf, they seems to huff and puff at the chores I ask of them! Hence I have no alternative but to stick with what,s available out there.
You can,t just win them all.
Martin Griffiths
October 15, 2012
Sarah’s blog clearly revisits a question that has been raised at regular intervals and neverly satisfactorily resolved.
It is clear that Text Relay is a long way off being the perfect answer for deaf and hard of hearing people but it is one of a number of solutions to communication barriers that we face.
I think the problem is that there isnt a one size fits all solution and that in itself creates a barrier to the range of solutions needed. If all of the supposedly 10 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK could get one device and one communication system that worked for them all then someone would find the answers due to the numbers and money involved.
Instead we have a community where some simply need adjustable volume and tone control, some need induction loops built into the device that is compatible with digital hearing aids whilst others need text based solutions and some need visual solutions to be able to communicate in BSL or whatever sign language they use.
Therefore we have a relatively small BSL community needing certain solutions such as Video Relay. Likewise we have a larger number of people who need a text solution in English or another oral langauge. Although this number is karger it is far removed from the more lucrative 10 million customer base.
In terms of those needing text solutions to contact a service providers telephone call centre there isnt really an alternative to TextRelay at the moment in terms of ease of access and cost of calls. Some have mentioned Captel but this was a very expensive service that was always going to be resisted when TextRelay was available.
I agree with Sarah that when TextRelay works it does a good job. I always seem to find that I have less problems calling a local taxi firm or Chinese takeaway than I do when I attempt to call large organisations like Vodafone, Nat West and public sector bodies such as health services.
Too often I call up managersin the health service who are very busy as they all are! They seem to listen for a minute or so before asking if you can email them. Then you wait hours, days or even weeks for a response. This doesnt seem to happen to those colleagues who call the same people using a standard mobile or landline call.
I agree that service providers and fellow professionals seem reluctant to call me via TextRelay no matter how much guidance I give them to make it easier for them. I get promised calls all the time but ultimately receive letters or emails. The problem is worse than some people realise as I once worked for a well known deafblind organisation and two of my staff objected to calling me with work reports as ‘it took too long!’ A senior member of staff at that organisation also said at a face to face meeting that ‘they were glad to see me one to one as you cant have the same conversation by Text Relay’. Of course you can!
For me the main problem is attitudinal not the service itself. It staggers me how some people object to breaking down barriers for a deaf or hard of hearing customer.
There are other problems too – at work, for examole, many organisations have digital exchanges and many are not compatible with certain phones that can be used with Text Relay. Again there is little incentive for textphone manaufacturers to keep up with technology when numbers are small and diminishing as people call friends and family via sms text, Skype, IM and so on.
Another problem is when you give companies your number with a prefix their systems do not allow them to type in the longer than anticipated number. This is poor systems planning and design in evidence.
for those who have clear speech a solution may be to use a Screenphone where you can use your own voice and get responses on a screen from Text Relay. This helps a little in that the person hears your voice and this makes the call seem a little more routine to someone who isnt used to receiving calls off deaf and hard of hearing people.
Sarah is right that organisations do not tend to embrace technology well – many companies do not accept IM messaging or text messaging. This is why for many we have to struggle on with Text Relay. It would be easier for me to use STTR to listen into calls and type the other side of conversation verbatim for me but the cost makes this solution unworkable. Some agencies doing remote captioning charge £65 minimum based on one hour even if the job takes 15 minutes. Clearly TextRelay will cost a fraction of that and therein lies issue of money.
Its hard but my life would be easier if relay calls could be faster and more ‘normal’ for the hearing person. In the meantime we need hope that organisations embrace IM, sms and other solutions.
barakta
October 16, 2012
Yes I agree more normality would be good, the sodding prefix + no way of IDing if someone is using voice or text is the main reason I don’t do incoming calls. I also think there could be substantial improvements to the typing speed and some of the operators in terms of training and qualification (and indeed recognition of their work and pay!). I don’t agree it’s OK to accept “good enough” like we have for the last decade+ because of profit or size of customer base or one size needing to fit all.
I don’t find small firms better than big orgs – I find they’re as mixed as one another. I’ve had repeated hangups from both but smaller firms will respond well to a scathing complaint whereas big orgs just carry on being incompetent and rude. I try and avoid getting tangled in big org phone trees and remove my custom from them if necessary.
I only agree to bounce back to email (cos TextRelay’s so horrid) after hassling someone by phone IF they actually email me as promised and it suits me – occasionally phone IS what I want to use as I need a dialogue. If they don’t email me as promised/agreed I’m right back on that textphone again haranguing via textrelay and telling $important $busy $annoying persons that I insist they use the phone because they’re showing me they can’t be trusted to use email (which is my preference!). Those that get the hint can then use email like sensible humans and those who don’t can continue to get harangued by TextRelay.
Interestingly while 99% of my communication with my clients at work is by email the few times I have used TextRelay they have been brilliant and some of the best hearie users I come across. I usually try and headsup by email or SMS to say “I’m going to phone using TextRelay + url of website, it’s a little strange but go with it… ” beforehand which seems to help.
Gordon Chapman
October 16, 2012
Sarah’s comment about the paucity of text calls being generated by hearing people is absolutely correct. Interestingly, when Deaf Connection (in Glasgow) undertook a VRS trial for the Scottish Government, one amazing statistic was that 50% of calls were generated by hearing people. If you provide a system that is user friendly everyone benefits, not just the Deaf person.
the concept of “total conversation”should be explored in more depth. Here in the UK, that has been developed by Aupix and trialled as a pan European trial (Reach 112) whose findings will be published very shortly
Raphael Harris
February 16, 2013
Apologies if this is the wrong place, but I am trying to help my sister. She has a serious and progressive speech disorder. BT has recommended text relay to me. She is proficient at touch typing so this may be a solution but I wonder if there is better. Thank you for any help you can give.