Languages and Accessibility

Who you leave out without planning

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 billion people, or 16% of the world's population, experience significant disability, and many more have temporary or age-related limits on hearing, sight, reach or memory. A robot that relies on a single channel will fail some of them. Speech alone shuts out people who are deaf or hard of hearing, a touchscreen alone shuts out many blind visitors, and a screen mounted at standing height is awkward from a wheelchair. Start your requirements from the range of people who actually come through your doors, including children and travellers carrying bags. Then ask each maker to demonstrate the robot being used by someone from each group, rather than by its own sales team.

Choosing languages for the robot's answers

Pick languages from evidence, such as booking records, the countries on loyalty accounts or the questions staff hear most, rather than from a maker's long list. Then test each language with native speakers in your own space, because recognition that copes in a quiet demo room can struggle with accents, background music and children. Ask how a visitor switches language: by a button, a flag on screen, or simply by speaking. Have a fluent person review fixed answers about prices, allergens, refunds and safety before they go live, and keep those answers scripted rather than generated on the fly. When the robot cannot understand someone after a second attempt, it should say so plainly and call a member of staff over.

Accessibility rules that reach service robots

Directive (EU) 2019/882, the European Accessibility Act, sets accessibility requirements for listed products and services. Its list includes ATMs, ticketing machines, check-in machines and interactive self-service terminals providing information, as well as consumer banking services and parts of passenger transport services. Whether a particular robot counts as one of those terminals is a question for your legal advisers, but a robot that sells tickets or checks people in is doing a terminal's job. Ask the maker whether it has assessed the robot against the Directive and under which national law. Outside the EU, check your own country's disability law before launch, and keep a staffed or accessible alternative close to the robot in every case.

Designing the screen and voice for everyone

ISO 9241-171:2025 sets requirements for making software accessible to people with a wide range of abilities, and it is written partly for the people who procure software. Use it to frame questions about the robot's interface: whether text size and contrast can be changed, whether captions appear for everything the robot says, whether it accepts touch as well as voice, and whether a visitor can slow it down or ask it to repeat itself. Ask whether the screen tilts or sits low enough for a seated user, and whether the voice can rise in a noisy hall without startling someone standing close by. Record which features are on by default, because most visitors will never go looking for accessibility settings.

Sources and further reading

• Disability (fact sheet) — World Health Organization.
  WHO's estimate of how many people live with significant disability and the barriers they meet.
• Directive (EU) 2019/882 on the accessibility requirements for products and services (European Accessibility Act) — EUR-Lex, Publications Office of the European Union.
  EU accessibility law whose scope lists check-in machines, ATMs, information terminals and consumer banking.
• ISO 9241-171:2025 Ergonomics of human-system interaction – Part 171: Software accessibility — International Organization for Standardization.
  Requirements for software that people with a wide range of abilities can use, written partly for buyers.

Common questions

Which languages should a hotel or shop robot speak?

Start with the languages your visitors use most, judged from bookings, sales records and staff experience, and add others only when you can test and maintain them. A few well-tested languages serve guests better than a long list that nobody checks.

How can deaf or blind visitors use a service robot?

Ask for more than one way in and out: captions and on-screen text for deaf visitors, speech output and physical controls for blind visitors, and an easy route to a member of staff for anyone the robot cannot serve well.