National Rail disruption info goes Video- Audio

[merry]

So went to check disruption info on National Rail this morning, before travelling for the first time in 6-7 weeks. Imagine my surprise when I found many entries are now videos of a guy (presumably AI) talking in front of an outline map with no supporting text, nor subtitles.Just the speech to convey information.
Now I am not hard of hearing or Deaf, but I cannot see how anyone who has such a dusability could easily access this information. TBH, I can't (or won't 'cos it'd be rude) often use video when travelling on trains, or in the office, because it means playing audio out loud (unless I faff about finding and connecting earbuds/headphones). Same applies at home with the family, or even in bed at night.

Am I being a bit Luddite here? Or is this 'innovation' in need of a rethink?
I reckon you could keep the video for those who find written information difficult - only reasonable for their accessibility - but include easy, static text description of the disruption as well for those who find audio/video unuseable.
I have already raised this in feedback to NR website, Be interesting to see the response!

 

[bcarmicle]

For the three that I could find with video, the text was still present below the video if you kept scrolling down.

 

[enginedin]

I first saw this a few days ago too - the full text was still there then. Interestingly, although I am professionally involved with AI, it didn't even cross my mind that it might have been AI. Having watched another couple, I'm not convinced they are AI - I think the speech + voice coordination is too smooth for current AI models, and the person doing sign language is definitely a real person (I would bet my job on the fact that no current AI models can do accurate, relatively technical sign language that could be posted on a website like that).

There have been other threads in the past about the sign language on some departure boards when the text is already there - and it being pointed out that sign language is a totally different language: a deaf person may be much more comfortable with sign language than reading things quickly. Equally, a poorly sighted person may like the more human voice describing the disruption, rather than using a screen reader, which really would sound much more automated. It's unfortunately quite ableist (but very common ) to not understand how small changes to services which don't affect any able-bodied people can make a massively positive impact to those who are less-abled.

 

[merry]

Fair enough - couldn't see that earlier, so text seems to have been reinstated (or i am a numpty).
It wasn't entirely obvious the a scroll is needed on a phone browser, but the text would have been visible on a laptop & wasn't on the articles I checked this morning. If it's already improved, well done to the team!

[Edit]
@enginedin you are right sbout BSL being a different language (as is ASL) Of course not all Deaf use sign, and the hard-of-hearing rarely learn it. I agree that blind/partially sighted people will benefit from audio, as may those with some learning or reading disabilities. Because of my work, I picked up the issue for hearing disability first! Now we have both sound/vision and text, more people should be able to access the info.
P.S. Interesting to think that the video is really only a carrier for audio!

 

[enginedin]

so text seems to have been reinstated

the text was never removed, just the video added

 

[Skimble19]

This has been around for a while now, although it’s only really been used for larger closures. As for the AI question; no, this is real people being recorded, no AI involved. The videos don’t replace the text, they just supplement it.

 

[Hophead]

The video and more to the point, audio, started automatically on a mobile device last time I opened a disruptions page, which I was very unhappy about, given there were no headphones attached. Has this been changed?

 

[tumbledown]

Hophead, that sounds like a bug your end (audio wise): Sproutvideo says

most modern web browsers have implemented strict policies around autoplaying videos in an effort to improve the user experience and provide greater control of playback to viewers. In most cases, videos will only be allowed to autoplay with sound if the user has already previously played a video with sound on the same domain.

On my device, e.g. the Corkickle video starts up muted: if I unmute and then reload the page, it starts up muted again.

 

[Hophead]

I doubt that I'd have played a National Rail video previously! But I've now done a bit of testing and found that Opera & Chrome mute by default and, for me, Firefox does not (though often doesn't even load).

 

[merry]

Firefox did auto-mute for me on both mobile (android) and windows platforms. I am grateful that it did. Always loaded the videos and auto-played though, eventually. Not happy about the bandwidth that incurs mind you...hohum.

 

[Mattplans]

Now I am not hard of hearing or Deaf, but I cannot see how anyone who has such a dusability could easily access this information. TBH, I can't (or won't 'cos it'd be rude) often use video when travelling on trains, or in the office, because it means playing audio out loud (unless I faff about finding and connecting earbuds/headphones). Same applies at home with the family, or even in bed at night.

I have also seen these videos being played on some kiosks at some London Terminals in the last couple of weeks. At London Bridge. I've witnessed it scrolling by itself and videos reading out upcoming engineering works affecting services from the station.

 

[Halwynd]

I doubt that I'd have played a National Rail video previously! But I've now done a bit of testing and found that Opera & Chrome mute by default and, for me, Firefox does not (though often doesn't even load).

Firefox autoplay settings can be adjusted at 'Settings > Privacy & Security > Permissions > Autoplay (choose 'Block Audio & Video), but it can be a bit hit & miss depending on the website. What works without fail and stops all autoplay videos from starting is (type in search bar): 'about:config' > 'media.autoplay.blocking_policy' (set this to 1 then click the blue save button)... then choose 'media.autoplay.default' in the same menu and make sure it is set at 5.

Voila. You can still watch videos on any website, but only by clicking them or pressing play. Irritating autoplay videos like these are banished forever.

 

[dosxuk]

Irritating autoplay videos like these are banished forever.

If only this was true. Default behaviour for all videos is to only play when the user wants it to play, however many many organisations think that their video is so important that they have to make it auto play. The settings in browsers to stop this is a bit of an arms race between allowing those sites (like YouTube) to auto play because it is what users actually want, and the dodgy sites who want to make sure their users are subjected to a shouty advert regardless of any browsers trying to stop them.

The only true way to stop them is to block JavaScript as well as the auto play settings, but that tends to affect the usability of the site as well.

Responsible publishers don't use auto play unless it's expected by all users - in this particular case, nobody would expect to go to a disruption page and suddenly there's someone chatting away. Unfortunately there's probably a marketing team somewhere counting number of views to measure engagement, and their pet project wouldn't seem as successful if playing the video or not was up to the user.

 

[davews]

I only turn on the speakers on my desktop pc if I need them on....

 

[Megafuss]

I appreciate the videos, but it's the use of the term "all lines" which really really annoys me.

For example, in the video regarding the Kyle line closure, they say it affects "all lines". Well, yeah! I know that is a National Rail thing in general, but it really gets on my wick (pardon the pun)

 

[Frontera2]

The videos are absolutely not AI generated