
As a hard-of-hearing person, apps like Clubhouse are frustrating and exclude people like me by default. Let’s take a closer look at Clubhouse and its accessibility options.
What is Clubhouse?
Clubhouse is a social networking app that functions largely around speech and hearing. It’s labeled as ‘drop-in voice chat’ and appears on your phone screen as a black and white photo of an iconic figure. It’s essentially the voice equivalent of Zoom; so you can leave Zoom outfits behind and stay in your PJs if you like. It leaves your hands free to do something else and could be ideal if you can’t hold the phone or tablet for long periods.
The voice app is still invitation-only, a strategy used by the founders to stagger pressure on the servers. It launched on iOS in March 2020, but it’s still in beta on Android. Clubhouse was founded by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, as part of their work for Alpha Exploration Co.
How Popular is Clubhouse?
The new voice chat app is gaining popularity rapidly, with 10 million weekly users currently engaging with Clubhouse. It’s attracted names like Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey, giving users a chance to hear their idols speak, and potentially even chat with them. Big names have also given the app a boost, and with the developers still carefully managing new users, that’s not entirely a good thing.
Financially, Clubhouse is doing fantastically well, with its $1 billion dollar value earning the coveted Unicorn Startup title, like Uber and Airbnb. Clubhouse sits comfortably in the top 20 social networking apps in the iOS app store. According to Bloomberg Opinion, the app is more popular than Instagram, Zoom, Tiktok, or WhatsApp, despite still being an invite-only app.
Currently, you can sign up for the service and hold the username or handle you want, but you can’t access the rest of the app without an invitation from an existing member. Each user only has two invites, but you can earn more as you use Clubhouse.
The exclusivity could be a play on real-world clubs or the developers could be simply scaling up slowly, as they say. However, Clubhouse has been accused of elitism in the past.
How Accessible is Clubhouse?
For all Clubhouse champions its ‘exclusivity’ message, it completely excludes the D/deaf and hard of hearing communities and several other disability groups.
D/deaf, Hard of Hearing and Speech Issues
As an audio and speech-based app, Clubhouse automatically excludes anyone with hearing or speech difficulties. You’d think as an obviously exclusionary app that Clubhouse would have ‘baked in’ (designed with accessibility in mind from the start) features like live-captioning or some way of offering sign language interpretation. However, there are still no accessibility options at all, and it’s been well over a year since the app launched on iOS. As Steven Aquino says: “It’s accessible only to those who can hear and see normally.”
With such a blatant show of ableism, most companies would scramble to cover their tracks and offer quick updates with accessibility options, but not Clubhouse. The voice chat app has been called out numerous times over its lack of accessibility but so far hasn’t made any attempt to work on this. My advice to Clubhouse would be to accommodate the whopping 430 million people they refuse to acknowledge. Can a startup in a crowded market really afford to close the doors on 5% of the world’s population? With an aging population, hearing loss is only going to increase, and for those of us getting old now, we’re already fluent in technology, unlike our grandparents.
Legal or Illegal?
Legally, Clubhouse isn’t doing anything wrong. At least, it’s entirely legal to offer an audio-based app with no alternative content in the US. However, it’s almost universally-agreed on that it’s bad for businesses to ignore accessibility these days. People with disabilities are more vocal and have more rights than ever, and we won’t be overlooked anymore.
In addition to supporting the millions of people living with a disability, Clubhouse can only benefit from providing an accessible app. Many other people rely on captions out of preference or when they’re in busy situations, such as in a noisy bar or when listening to a speaker with an unfamiliar accent. (There’s an excellent image to illustrate this here. Source.)
Clubhouse also completely excludes people with speech difficulties or those who are non-verbal. There is no alternative to speech in the Clubhouse app yet, so those of you with speech difficulties are stuck listening to conversations you can’t take part in.
Low Vision and Color Blindness
For anyone living with low vision or color blindness, the Clubhouse app is not exactly accessible. Quite the opposite as its labels and buttons can’t be picked up by screen readers, so anyone with low vision will struggle to get around the app. I believe Clubhouse has added an update that better supports people with low vision.
Many people with visual difficulties have reported issues with the app’s black and white color scheme. Some people have trouble identifying the app on their phones due to the ever-changing icons. However, Clubhouse has made no attempt to address or answer any of these concerns.
Neurodiversity and Mental Health
Clubhouse is still fairly unmoderated, so trigger warnings, hate groups, racism, homophobia, and everything in between are rampant. The Clubhouse app isn’t the safest place to be yet.
Some users report a somewhat tricky learning curve to understand the app, which may be a problem for anyone with learning difficulties. However, the fact that there is barely any text means Clubhouse might be a fantastic tool for people with reading difficulties.
Alternatives to Clubhouse
Many social media giants have begun jumping on the audio app idea and announcing their own versions, like Twitter Spaces. Let’s take a look at some of the alternatives to Clubhouse below.
Twitter Spaces
Much more accessible than Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces has two teams of colleagues working exclusively on making the entire Twitter service accessible to all. Spaces provides auto-captions and accessible labels for screen readers. They’re even working on more accurate captions and alternatives to voice.
Discord
Discord can be fiddly to use, but it finally announced an accessibility menu back in March. It now offers text-to-speech and reduced motion on flashing emojis or animations. No word on captions yet, but with a clear move towards making Discord accessible, I live in the hope that the developers will add an auto-captioning feature soon. If Twitter Spaces can do it, there’s absolutely no reason why any other audio chat app can’t, Clubhouse included.
Riffr
If short soundbites work better for you than trying to follow lengthy, fast-moving conversations, check out Riffr. It functions like Twitter, in the sense that it is microblogging, but with audio. This allows you to replay sound at your own pace to take your time understanding the content. Clubhouse, to me, looks like a great party I can’t go to, but all it would really take is an auto-captioning feature, and millions of people like me could join in. It’s a massive oversight on Clubhouse’s part, especially since a direct competitor, Twitter Spaces, already offers this. However, if you’re more comfortable with voice than text, Clubhouse could be a lifesaver.
BIO: Mel Ashford is a freelance writer from Wales, UK. She lives with moderate hearing loss and fibromyalgia. Mel is a proud mommy to a French Bulldog and a tortoiseshell cat.
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