Skip to content

accessibility.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
163 lines (119 loc) · 6.94 KB

accessibility.md

File metadata and controls

163 lines (119 loc) · 6.94 KB
Raw

Accessibility Tags

Clusterflick tracks accessibility features on individual screenings so users can filter for screenings that meet their needs. Each screening can have zero or more of the following tags.

Tag Definitions

audioDescription

The screening includes a supplementary audio track that describes visual elements (actions, expressions, scene changes) for blind or visually impaired viewers.

How venues label it: "Audio Described", "AD"

Detection: Set from structured venue data (API attributes, HTML tags) or from title patterns like AD: or (Audio Described). Not inferred from descriptions because "audio" appears too frequently in unrelated contexts.

babyFriendly

The screening is designed to welcome parents or carers with babies and young children. This covers two common formats:

  • Parent & baby screenings — lower volume, lights slightly raised, pram parking available, no pressure if your baby cries.
  • Kids club / family programming — curated shorter or age-appropriate films aimed at young children (e.g. Movies for Juniors, Big Shorts, Kids Club, Babykino).

The common thread is that the screening accommodates young children who would otherwise be disruptive in a standard screening.

How venues label it: "Parent & Baby", "Baby & 1", "Kids Club", "Babykino", "Movies for Juniors", "Big Shorts", "Mighty Mornings", "Baby Club", "Newbies", "Watch With Baby"

Detection: Set from structured venue data or from title patterns. Also detected from description text containing phrases like "parent and baby" or "baby friendly".

dogFriendly

Audiences are welcome to bring their dogs into the screening. Nobody needs a dog to attend: Curzon's Dog Days say dog lovers without one of their own are welcome too, so this is permission to bring one rather than a condition of entry. It is also worth knowing for anyone with a dog allergy or a fear of dogs.

Venues sometimes adjust the screening for the dogs (Curzon lowers the sound), but that isn't part of the tag; it stays in the performance notes.

How venues label it: "Dog Friendly", "Dog-Friendly Screening", "Dog Days"

Detection: Set from structured venue data or from title patterns like Dog Friendly Screening: or Dog-Friendly -. Also detected from description text describing the screening ("this screening is dog friendly", "welcome to bring their dogs") — never from a bare mention of dogs, which a synopsis can easily contain.

hardOfHearing

The screening includes captions or other support for deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers. This covers:

  • Open captions — subtitles burned into the image, visible to everyone.
  • Closed captions — subtitles that can be toggled on via a device.
  • SDH (Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) — subtitles that include non-dialogue audio cues like [doorbell rings] or [tense music].
  • BSL (British Sign Language) interpreted — a signer is present or picture-in-picture signing is provided.

This tag is distinct from subtitled, which is for language translation. hardOfHearing captions are in the film's original language and include non-dialogue cues.

How venues label it: "Captioned", "HOH", "HoH", "Hard of Hearing", "CC", "OC", "SDH", "BSL", "Watchword" (ODEON's closed-caption glasses)

Detection: Set from structured venue data or from title patterns. Also detected from description text containing phrases like "captioned" or "with captions".

relaxed

A screening with adjustments for neurodiverse audiences, including autistic viewers and people with learning disabilities or sensory sensitivities. Typically features:

  • Lower sound levels
  • Lights kept slightly up
  • No trailers or pre-show adverts
  • Freedom to move around, make noise, or leave and re-enter
  • A calm, tolerant atmosphere

How venues label it: "Relaxed Screening", "Autism Friendly", "Sensory Friendly", "Dementia Friendly", "ATF"

Detection: Set from structured venue data or from title patterns like Relaxed Screening, (Relaxed), Autism Friendly or Sensory Friendly. Also detected from description text containing "relaxed screening". A bare "ATF" is only read from structured data (Vue's attribute), never from a title.

subtitled

The film is shown with subtitles translating dialogue into another language (typically English). This tag is for language accessibility — making foreign-language or partially foreign-language films accessible to a broader audience.

This is distinct from hardOfHearing, which provides same-language captions with non-dialogue cues for hearing accessibility.

How venues label it: "Subtitled", "Subbed", "With Subtitles", "(Sub)"

Detection: Set from structured venue data or from title patterns. Also detected from description text containing "with subtitles" or "with english subtitles".

Adding Accessibility Mappings for a New Venue

When adding a new cinema or source module, map the venue's accessibility data to the standard tags above. Common patterns:

  1. Structured data (API attributes, HTML tags, icon alt text): Map each attribute to the appropriate tag in your transform.js. Pass the result as the accessibility parameter to createAccessibility().

  2. Title-based: The shared getTitleAccessibility() function in common/utils.js automatically scans titles for common patterns. If your venue uses non-standard naming, add a venue-specific check or propose a new shared matcher.

  3. Description-based: Pass the screening description as the third argument to createAccessibility(title, accessibility, description). The shared function will scan for high-confidence accessibility phrases.

  4. Notes-based: createPerformance() reads the performance notes for every venue, so nothing needs passing. A short note (60 characters or fewer) is a label such as "Kids Club" or "dementia friendly" and is read with the title patterns; a longer one is prose and is read with the description phrases. Notes only ever add a tag.

Priority order: explicit venue data > title detection > description detection > notes detection.

Edge Cases

  • "Subtitled" icon that actually means captions for the hearing-impaired: Some venues use "subtitled" to mean what we call hardOfHearing. Check whether the subtitles include non-dialogue cues — if so, map to hardOfHearing. If the venue is ambiguous, prefer subtitled unless the context clearly indicates hearing accessibility.

  • "Digital" or projection-format labels: These refer to the projection technology, not accessibility. Do not map to audioDescription unless the venue explicitly confirms it means audio description.

  • Foreign-language films with burned-in subtitles: If a film is shown in its original language with English subtitles as standard (not a special subtitled screening), this is a property of the film, not the screening. Only set subtitled when the venue is flagging it as a specific accessibility feature of that screening.