This should be managed by a menu option usually found in the audio menu. The most common settings would be “Off/Dialogue/Dialogue + Captions”. If the option is set to “Off” it should not affect the base settings of the game. If it is set to “Dialogue” each spoken dialogue element will be represented by subtitles. If it is set to “Dialogue + Captions” each spoken dialogue element and relevant environmental audio clips should be visualized as subtitles.
Subtitles should be modifiable by offering options to control the subtitle scale and background.
The purpose of this feature is to help users with limited hearing but also to add more options for receiving the product’s information output.
Feature Description
Subtitles General Description
Subtitles will translate sound-based information into something that can be read and therefore perceived visually. This sound-based information will be separated into dialogue and cations.
The dialogue will be placed on the lower half of the screen, captions will be placed on the upper half of the screen and each caption will be surrounded by square brackets (An example for loud wind: [Wind howls]).
Each dialogue for a repeating character will be colour-coded so that it becomes easier to identify which character is currently speaking. Ideally, the colours selected are easily identifiable and function well even if the user is colourblind (More about colourblindness is in a different section of this work).
At the start of the dialogue subtitle line should be the name of the currently speaking character (An example for this: Scorpion: Get over here) the name will stay at the start of the line even if the dialogue is delivered in multiple subtitle lines.
Subtitle Settings
Enable Subtitles
While the “Subtitles” setting is set to “Dialogue” all dialogue will be displayed as subtitles.
While the “Subtitles” setting is set to “Dialogue + Captions” all dialogue and captions will be displayed as subtitles.
While the “Subtitles” setting is set to “Off” no subtitles are displayed.
Set Subtitle Size
While the “Subtitle size” is set to “normal” it uses the originally selected font size.
While the “Subtitle size” is set to “large” the font size should be ~30% larger.
Set Subtitle Background
While the “Subtitle background” Setting is set to “On” the background of the subtitles should be a black box.
While the “Subtitle background” Setting is set to “Off” the background of the subtitles should be transparent, it might be good to add an outline to the characters in this situation to make sure the fonts are readable regardless of the environment.
Additional
Subtitles are one of these settings that really want to be enabled by default.
Additional Reading
https://www.w3.org/WAI/media/av/captions/
