Samsung Electronics announced it has won a CES 2016 Best of Innovation Award in the Accessible Tech category for one of its new Smart TVs, which will be revealed in full at CES in Las Vegas, on January 5^th, 2016. Held annually, the CES Innovation Awards honor outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology, with the winning products displayed for everyone to experience at the Innovation Awards Showcase, live at CES.

“Designing a television that offers the best possible picture quality and is accessible for all our customers is something we aim to achieve with all our SUHD and Smart TV models,” said John Ryu, Vice President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. “We are proud to have our Smart TV recognized for offering best in class accessibility by the CES Innovation Awards. We will continue to introduce new ways that allow all consumers to enjoy the best TV viewing experience possible.”

Voice Guidance: A More Convenient User Experience

Samsung’s Voice Guidance feature makes a range of TV functions easier to use, including setup, web browsing and other steps typically only shown on screen. Using their normal conversational voice, people can easily interact with the TV, for example to record upcoming programs and manage various Smart TV applications, as well as to request information such as show times and program titles.

Amplify and Clear Voice: Improving Sound Clarity

The Amplify function of Samsung Smart TV can enhance high-frequency sounds to further improve sound clarity. Another Clear Voice function makes spoken dialogue easier to hear by adjusting frequency of the voices in the TV.

New Graphical User Interface: Enhanced Readability

New Smart TV’s graphical user interface offers better overall on-screen readability with twice the contrast of previous models.

Good Design is Accessible Design
Samsung’s drive to constantly develop its TV technology with advanced yet intuitive functionality and new accessibility features, helps provide an improved TV viewing experience for all consumers. Voice Guidance, Amplify and Clear Voice functions are also designed to be simple and easy for everyone to use.

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Samsung Electronics Poland, in partnership with Migam, an online sign language interpretation service, has prepared an online customer service center for people with hearing impairments, enhancing their opportunities and their access to digital technologies.

Thanks to cooperative efforts with Migam, Samsung Electronics’ hearing-impaired customers in Poland are now able to use the local customer service center, both through the video chat service on the samsung.pl website and by using a special mobile application. The application has been available since Sept. 21 as a video chat and mobile app.

“The partnership with Migam.org will help us break the contact barrier in providing service to our hearing-impaired customers. Through the ‘Pomagamy Migiem’ [‘We help to sign quickly’] campaign we want to help our customers save time and solve their problems,” said Magdalena Olborska, CSV and Partnership Manager of Samsung Electronics Poland.

Samsung also prepared 45-second instructional spots, in which a dedicated sign-language interpreter explains how to use the video chat and mobile application functions. In addition, several service outlets have been designated as having sign-language capable agents for handling problems.

“We are glad for the road we have been taking since December 2013, when we began focusing on enabling people with hearing disabilities to handle their problems conveniently with the assistance of sign-language interpreters,” said Sławomir Łuczywek, Director of Migam. “Samsung, as a company whose devices are used by millions of Poles, both those who hear well and those who are hearing-impaired, is simply being considerate of the latter group. Thanks to our close cooperation, we have developed actions and plans to help people with hearing disabilities handle their problems just like people with hearing do.”

Cooperating with Migam is one of many solutions planned by Samsung as part of its accessibility policy. Changes are also being introduced at the company’s brand stores to make them more accessible, and employees there are getting additional training. The first of the new Samsung stories is slated to open in early October at Arkadia Shopping Centre in Warsaw, and by the end of the year there will be three more: in Bydgoszcz, Wrocław and Kielce.

Samsung places a high priority on ensuring its state-of-the-art technologies are accessible for people with disabilities. The Galaxy S6 smartphone, for example, offers sound detectors for hearing-impaired people, while those with visual impairments can adjust the color and use voice labels. In addition, people with mobility impairments may control some phone functions with gestures, such as the “Gesture wake up” feature, which turns on a screen without requiring to user push any buttons. In addition to making its products convenient and usable for all, Samsung is also working to make its corporate websites more accessible.