Including TTY contact info on a form
March 6, 2012 9:57 AM   Subscribe

TTY users: When filling out a form, how do you handle the "phone number" blanks? Do you write in your TTY number and indicate it is a TTY number? What if you're filling out a form online? (I am designing an online form and want to make sure users can include TTY contact info if appropriate.)
posted by leticia to Technology (4 answers total)
 
I have done this with a standard phone number field and a simple tickbox next to it marked TTY:

Phone:
[____________________] [] TTY?
posted by DarlingBri at 10:24 AM on March 6, 2012


Best answer: Actually, this issue can be really tricky for those who are deaf or have hearing losses; not everyone uses a TTY, which is often seen as obsolete technology now that we have email and text messaging. I know I certainly don't.


How is the input data from the form going to be processed? Manually or automatically?

If it's manually, perhaps you can provide some sort of text field in which a person can write any special needs? Personally as a deaf person who does not use a TTY, whenever I see a form like that, I just write (TEXT ONLY) in big letters right next to the field asking for my phone number, which I provide.
posted by Conspire at 4:04 PM on March 6, 2012 [1 favorite]


Best answer: To accommodate viewers like Conspire, I wonder if a form like this would work:

Phone:
[____________________] [] TTY?

Cell:
[____________________] [] Texy only?

But really, I think designing a form depends hugely on context and audience.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:29 AM on March 7, 2012


Response by poster: Many thanks for the feedback. I didn't realize that TTY technology might be seen as obsolete. Also, our form will be processed manually, so now i'm thinking the best approach would be to leave a comment space for a TTY or text-only note.
posted by leticia at 11:13 AM on March 8, 2012


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