Audio Description in Interactive Television (iTV): Proposal of a Collaborative and Voluntary Approach

AbstractAudio description (AD) is a media feature especially designed for visually impaired people to enable the access, via audio, to the description of visual content, such as television programs or movies, in which a narrator orally describes the visual scenes that are not perceptible by these users. Without this feature, unfortunately not available on a large scale, visually impaired users (VIU) have major difficulties in taking the best benefit of television contents.Currently, the production of AD is a costly and complex process, achieving only the minimum requirements mandated by what TV law obliges. However, the current technological convergence paradigm provides great opportunities to enhance this process, leveraging the number of AD and bringing relevant socio-economic impacts.In this context, this paper aims to describe some key steps to support the participatory development of a cross-platform prototype, which enable collaborative and voluntary creation of AD in an inclusive approach. A special focus is given to a preliminary test aiming to understand how the target audience responds to the designed collaborative strategy. Based on a qualitative evaluation, we found that volunteers were satisfied with the procedure used to create AD and visually impaired users felt that this AD assisted them