National Theatre

As the NT’s Partner for Innovation 2017-2020, we brought our digital and immersive technology expertise to craft a one-of-a-kind solution. Leveraging user-centric design thinking, the Accenture Digital - Extended Reality team rapidly evolved and iterated an initial proof of concept: a solution using augmented reality smart caption glasses that rewrote the script for audience accessibility.

Working with the NT team, we continuously refined the smart caption glasses’ user interface, improving the experience throughout a year of rigorous testing, leading to the launch of this revolutionary captioning service in 2018. By displaying captions in real time on the glasses’ lenses, the audience can now see the dialogue in front of their eyes – from any seat in the house. And, using a discrete hand-held remote controller, the captions can be turned on and off or moved around the field of vision as needed.

With the smart caption glasses available for any live production, the NT is able to offer deaf and hard of hearing patrons an incredible degree of flexibility, meaning they never have to take their eyes off the drama; heralding a truly transformational change to the way in which this audience can experience theatre. Created by Epson, the glasses are lightweight enough to stay comfortable for a show lasting several hours, letting hard of hearing visitors enjoy every production to the fullest – not just those with fixed captions. And they mean other audience members are no longer distracted by caption screens they don’t use. That’s a winning performance by any measure. It also opens up other opportunities for the arts, whether it’s extending the solution to provide additional information in other cultural venues or enabling subtitles in different languages.