ECART'95b:

Text telephones enable persons with hearing or speech impairments to communicate via the common telephone network. Despite its late arrival (1960s), and although all the base technologies employed have reached a high degree of maturity, text communication has not yet been able to overcome some major problems, such as incompatible protocols, varying charging schemes, restricted access to relay services, etc. This paper introduces the main aspects of text telephones and relay services, discusses the relationship between user needs and design-for-all issues, makes a brief presentation of the current state in this field, and finally highlights the main aspects that will lead to a uniform text communication system.