IVR Accessibility Solutions

This page contains information about different solutions to inaccessible IVRs

 

Audio quality

Clear audio foreground

Volume control

Speed control

Repeat and rewind

Speech recognition

Speech recognition offers some advantages over keypad input. First, it is less physically demanding; some people have more difficulty pressing keys than speaking. Second, it can be less cognitively demanding, because it does not require as much cognitive processing to say "sales" as to reply accurately to "If you want to be connected to Sales, press'3'".

However, some people with impaired speech may not be accurately recognized. For this reason, it is important to retain input redundancy. Users should also be able to respond to prompts via the touchtone keypad.

Speech synthesis

of screen information (e.g. small LCDs on business phones)

can be implemented through computer in some cases

Timeouts

Ability to repeat the menu, or auto-repeat.

TTY Compatibility

Signal compatibility

Entry: Baudot characters as well as DTMF

both for VM subscriber and for caller

Text equivalents for menus and messages

Spoken prompt TTY text equivalent Comment
For Sales, press '1'

SALES PRESS 1

FOR SALES PRESS 1 ON YOUR PHONE

FOR SALES DIAL 1

 
Your call is important to us. Please hold and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received. PLS HD - UR CALL IS IMPORTANT PLS HD This message should be repeated every 20 seconds to indicate to the TTY user that they are still connected and in queue.
Please enter your customer ID at the tone.

PLS ENTER YR CUSTOMER ID NBR GA

PLS ENTER UR CUSTOMER ID NOW GA

 
...or to get the operator, press '0'.

FOR OPR DIAL 0 NOW OR WAIT FOR NEXT AVAILABLE REP GA

PLS LV UR NAME WITH TTY NBR AND SHORT MSSG - SOMEONE WILL CALL YOU BACK SOON GA

The first option should only be used if the Operator has a TTY. Otherwise, use the second option: take a message and return the call by TTY or through relay.