How Deaf Advocates Won the Battle for Closed Captioning and Changed the Way Americans Watch TV

Whenever people “watch captions in noisy environments such as gyms and bars, they have the deaf community to thank.”

Universal Design (UD) is an approach to design that increases the potential for developing a better quality of life for a wide range of individuals. It is a design process that enables and empowers a diverse population by improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation (Steinfeld and Maisel, 2012). It creates products, systems, and environments to be as usable as possible by as many people as possible regardless of age, ability or situation.