TTY symbol

How to read it

TTY is short for teletypewriter. The 2010 ADA Standards define a TTY as machinery for interactive text-based communication over the telephone network, also called a text telephone, and include devices known as TDDs (telecommunication devices for deaf persons). Their International Symbol of TTY shows the keyboard and space bar of a typical device with the shape of a telephone handset at the top. Under the Standards, public TTYs must be identified by the symbol, and signs at banks of public pay telephones without one must point to the nearest. The Graphic Artists Guild describes the device as used with the telephone for communication between deaf, hard of hearing, speech impaired and hearing people.

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How a TTY call works

A TTY has a keyboard, and the conversation is read on a display or a paper printout, the FCC explains. To reach someone on an ordinary phone, the TTY user calls a relay centre and types the number; an operator there speaks what the TTY user types and types what the other person says. A separate number marked TTY beside a phone number is a line for these calls: the Department of Justice lists its ADA Information Line with one number for voice and another for TTY.

Look-alikes

A telephone handset with sound waves coming from it marks a volume control telephone, not a TTY: the ADA Standards and the Guild both have a separate symbol for phones with amplified sound. The ear with a bar marks assistive listening systems.