Today is Audio Description Awareness Day!

[kestrell]

Next week I will begin the final two weeks of training in my web tester course taught by the Carroll Center for the Blind, and my plan for after I finish this course (because *of course* I have a plan) is to learn more about making media accessible, so I'm excited that there is a day dedicated to making people more aware of audio description.

Text taken from an announcement email by the Perkins School for the Blind:

Today, April 16, marks Audio Description Awareness Day.
What is audio description? It's descriptive narration of key visual elements in movies, theatre, and more.

It's also something really important to all of us at Perkins. Audio description, assistive devices, and assistive technology are all ways that we can simply make the world more inclusive for all. It fits right into our mission here that we believe EVERY child can learn.

What can you do? We got you covered.

3 stories on audio description & more

Audio description: Best practices
As experts in the field, Perkins is here to share our best practices for audio description for our community.
Learn more
https://www.perkins.org/resource/audio-description-best-practices-guide/

Communicating with Josias
Josias in Mexico is just one of many children who have grown and thrived with the help of assistive devices.
Meet Josias
https://www.perkins.org/communicating-with-josias/

Assistive technology bracket results
Loving the madness in March, Perkins joined in on bracketology with our very own assistive tech bracket!
Find out the winner!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CcBVeRTuzde/

Children's Day in Mexico

Children's Day, or Día del Niño, is on April 30. Learn about the holiday and meet Tere, a child in Mexico, whose story demonstrates why the holiday is so important to celebrate.
Check it out
https://www.perkins.org/in-mexico-childrens-day-celebrates-kids-like-tere/

Comments

Are Self-Descriptions Eye Candy?

[jesse_the_k]

There's an ongoing discussion about what to include in AD. Black and blind audio producer Thomas Reid rounds up three articles as well as his own thoughts in a guest post at the Disability Visibility Project.

Is it performative, or is it access, or a combination of both?

A self-description provides information about a person that non-blind people passively glean. This includes identity characteristics such as skin color, gender identity, hair length and texture, wardrobe, and more.

[... snip ...]

Self-description is not a magic wand. It will never provide an equivalent experience to what a sighted person gleans from observation. It’s about providing access to information, increasing a Blind attendee’s opportunity to “observe” and participate. For many, it requires a bit of instruction and practice. But what if 15 extra seconds during an introduction encourages all presenters to think about how to make their talks more accessible such as describing their slides, videos, and graphs, offering large-print paper copies of their talk, slowing down for the captioner and interpreter, using a microphone, or at the very least asking the question to the audience, “Can everyone access the information here today?”

Re: Are Self-Descriptions Eye Candy?

[kestrell]

These are the kind of questions which I find really interesting, especially as so much of my work in recent years has touched on diversity and equity. I'm going to bookmark this article so that I can continue to think about the many layers to this conversation. Thank you for pointing me to it!