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I have a deaf team mate. He is a great admin who is hungry to learn more. We have moved our meetings to Microsoft Teams for live captions. This has helped all of us immensely.
I've read older HN submissions from deaf community members with great ideas. The articles are old, and I'm sure there are new ideas.
Please help me to help my team mate.
Thanks in advance.
*Edit - I forgot to mention we're 99% remote. Thanks for every suggestion so far.
I absolutely hate video conferencing tools. The sound is horrible and live captions are often incorrect. Very few people speak clearly enough for accurate captioning.
I prefer to read and be shown rather than being told. I prefer email, and avoid voicemail.
So if you are trying help your team mate, simply focus on alternatives to talking and listening. The internet is great for learning since so much good material is available in written form.
We also changed standups to mean that only the person holding the Bluetooth mic connected to his cochlear implant could speak: that had the added benefit of stopping standups from falling into solution-finding exercises.
Main factor should be to ask him, to better understand how he "works around". "Best case comparaison" for video conferencing is IRL meetings. Does he feel "comfortable" with IRL meetings assuming proper lightning and face orientation? If not, then it's likely there is no fancy video conferencing that'll be ok, and just forget about video conferencing.
Assuming he reads lips, better video overall: Give all co-workers better cameras and lighting, check that Microsoft Teams doesn't compress stupidly (if it does, maybe try other systems...), have your coworkers frame the camera properly on their face. Better mics if he can hear a tiny bit.
Write minutes live in a shared document.
My biggest recommendation is to use a phone call for audio because he can then use America’s free video relay service for ASL or captioned telephone service. The captions on captioned telephone use both an AI and a human in conjunction, so they are much more accurate.
Try to do some audio-free team bonding exercises. Perhaps charades (with everyone typing answers).
If he uses ASL, learn some and provide resources to other teammates to learn some. Knowing some ASL, at minimum enough to do some small talk, will be a huge sign of respect towards him if that’s his native language.
Finally, something that people might not think about: If he misses something someone said and asks you what it was, never say "it's nothing" or "it wasn't important" or "it was just a joke" no matter how minor the comment was. Just repeat it no matter what.
I've never been diagnosed with anything officially but I have a stutter problem and I struggle to convert my thoughts to words in real-time. So even for someone like myself I find text preferable to voice/video meetings most of the time anyway. I suspect a lot of non-native speakers probably feel similar too.
Video / voice meetings can be nice to do from time to time for casual meetings such as retrospectives, but when I need to explain something technical I'd rather have time to compile my thoughts and write them down in a way that's clear and easy to understand. Plus if I write it down it's stored on Slack for later reference and it's more accessible for those who struggle with audible communication.
I am hard of hearing and lip read to assist with following conversations. I absolutely hate video conferencing tools. The sound is horrible and live captions are often incorrect. Very few people speak clearly enough for accurate captioning. I prefer to read and be shown rather than being told. I prefer email, and avoid voicemail. So if you are trying help your team mate, simply focus on alternatives to talking and li…
If this is true of most people, then maybe the finger of blame should not point at the people. Software sucks. That's why we all have jobs.
Is this a team mate at a US company? If so, note that Teams live captioning may not be enough to meet your non discrimination requirements. Your company may have a legal obligation to hire an ASL interpreter or human transcriber, including for in person meetings. My biggest recommendation is to use a phone call for audio because he can then use America’s free video relay service for ASL or captioned telephone service…
Have you done this effectively in a work environment?
Pre-remote, I worked well with a deaf colleague by pair-programming across a corner of a desk so we were facing both each other and the screen. We also changed standups to mean that only the person holding the Bluetooth mic connected to his cochlear implant could speak: that had the added benefit of stopping standups from falling into solution-finding exercises.
That's wonderful! As the parent of a child with bilateral hearing loss, this accommodation would help immensely in his future work and study environments.