Samsung Electronics Honored for Innovations in TV Accessibility by Royal National Institute of Blind People in the UK

Neil Heslop, Director of RNIB Solutions demonstrates the accessibility functions of Samsung Smart TV.

Samsung Electronics was acknowledged by the United Kingdom’s Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) for outstanding progress in accessible technology for 2015 Samsung TVs. The RNIB’s prestigious “Inclusive Society Award” recognizes RNIB partners for innovations in technology that allows people with sight loss to live more independently.

Samsung has closely worked with RNIB since 2012 for testing and reviewing products for ease of use and accessibility, specifically to improve viewing experiences for the people with sight loss.

Samsung’s drive to constantly evolve its TV technology with advanced yet intuitive functionality and new accessibility features helps to provide an improved TV viewing experience for all consumers. Samsung offers features specifically designed for partially sighted or blind users, including text-to-speech Voice Guidance and a high contrast user interface.

Samsung’s Voice Guide feature makes a range of TV functions easier to use for the people with sight loss. It includes all day-to-day operations such as channel changing, describing programs displayed in the Electronic Program Guide (EPG), setup, web browsing and other steps typically only shown on screen. Partially sighted and blind users can now more easily interact with their TVs using a conversational voice to manage applications, record upcoming programs and request information like upcoming show times. The graphical user interface in Samsung TVs offers better overall readability with high contrast levels and improved picture quality.

“Our organization offers resources and information that better the day-to-day lives of the people with sight loss,” said Neil Heslop, Director of RNIB Solutions. “Samsung has partnered with us to improve the TV viewing experience year after year and we are recognizing their contributions with this award.”

“Samsung recognizes the importance of creating an easy and seamless user experience for everyone, regardless of their physical abilities,” said Steve Park, Managing Director of Samsung Electronics Research Institute UK (SRUK). “Our products aim to have the best accessibility implementation in the marketplace today, and we are honored to be recognized by the RNIB. We will continue to work with our partners to improve the technology and accessibility offerings for all of our products and services.”

Since implementing the first iterations of Voice Guidance and the high contrast user interface, Samsung has continued to improve the functionality each year. Most recently, the 2016 Samsung Smart TV accessibility features were recognized at CES. The latest TV model was awarded a CES 2016 Best of Innovation Award in the Accessible Tech category, the second year in a row that Samsung TVs have been awarded in this category.

Samsung recently launched a dedicated accessibility web page (www.samsung.com/uk/accessibility/main.html) which informs users about the accessibility capabilities of all its products.

Neil Heslop (left) with Steve Park, Managing Director of Samsung Electronics Research Institute UK (center), and Robin Spinks, Principal Manager of Digital Accessibility at RNIB (right).