In earlier installments of this series, we looked at the work Smith-Kettlewell Institute is doing with regard to video description through its Video Description Research and Development Center (VDRDC). Josh Miele, research scientist for Smith-Kettlewell, and his team have been gathering information from consumers and producers of video description, blind and sighted individuals, and in this article we'll take a look and where and how critical feedback has been gathered, and what those providing it had to say.
Video Description is a Critical Tool in Educational and Professional Settings
As Miele puts it, "Video description [for blind people] is no longer a luxury." While verbal explanations of "what's happening" are certainly an enhancement to comic and dramatic entertainment, videos are an increasingly dynamic component in educational and professional settings. If a blind student is going to participate fully and equally in the classroom, accessing the visual components of educational videos is essential. If a blind professional is expected to use video training materials in the work environment, those videos need to incorporate description of the elements not clearly understood without sight.
With funding from the National Eye Institute and the Department of Education Office of Special Education and Programs (OSEP), the VDRDC has organized major stakeholders in the realm of video description to develop YouDescribe, a set of tools for amateur and professional describers alike to record description of online videos that can be shared with anyone with access to the internet.
In the summer of 2012, Miele made presentations at the general sessions of the two major consumer organizations of blind people in the United States, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and the American Council of the Blind (ACB). In addition to confirming that video description is a popular and desirable topic, those presentations served to stimulate imaginations regarding how crowd-sourcing could move description from a position of desirable accessory (describing an episode of "the Simpsons" or "CSI" for entertainment value), to that of a fundamental tool available to blind people whenever they need it to level that proverbial playing field.
2012 Focus Groups
Miele and his team conducted focus groups at the same events where Miele presented. Two focus groups were conducted at each venue, with ten participants in each group.
The purpose of these discussions was to get feedback on two basic questions: First, would blind and visually impaired consumers of video description find description by amateurs acceptable if it meant getting more description? Second, would blind consumers be in favor of extended description, that is, description that goes beyond the boundaries of natural pauses or spaces in a video (the standard for TV broadcasts and Hollywood films)?
While there are arguably no clearly defined guidelines separating "professional" describers from "amateur" ones, most participants quickly understood the terms as they were being used in the discussions. Professional describers are usually individuals who describe for live theater, TV programming, or movies. They have usually received some form of training, and they are usually paid for their efforts. Amateur describers are more "casual" describers. They are usually neither trained nor paid. These are decidedly loose definitions. Some trained describers are not paid for their work, and some who are paid may not always provide description worthy of rave reviews!
What matters here is the particular information Smith-Kettlewell researchers were seeking in asking the questions. The idea of crowd-sourced description is that anyone, anytime, trained or not, could describe a particular video for a friend, relative, classmate, or stranger who is blind and needs the description.
Feedback from the focus groups indicated that most participants were happy to get as much description as possible. While "professional" description was preferable, "amateur" was viewed as acceptable and desirable if done tastefully.
To date, those describing film or live theater have concentrated on fitting any verbal description into the pauses or silences in the script. The idea behind "extended" or "expanded" description is to give the describer the amount of time required to describe adequately. The blind viewer can then listen to as much or as little of that description as desired. Miele and his team learned that extended description was an acceptable concept to most people.
Asking these particular questions of the 2012 focus groups was fueled by the VDRDC developing YouDescribe. In the year that followed those 2012 focus groups, YouDescribe went live. With YouDescribe, amateurs can indeed provide video descriptions, which then become available to anyone interested in that description. (At this point, YouDescribe works exclusively with YouTube videos.) Videos can be paused and extended description provided. Now that it was up and running, more feedback was needed.
2013 Focus Groups
In July 2013, the Smith-Kettlewell team again asked the NFB and ACB for assistance in forming focus groups. This time, each group contained only five individuals who received one-on-one attention from the team of researchers. Two groups were conducted in each venue, one for a trial run in creating description with YouDescribe and another group for critiquing the YouDescribe site and the description found there. While one might draw the conclusion that the first of these groups was comprised of blind people and the other sighted, Miele is quick to point out that no such clear-cut guidelines exist. There is, in fact, a concerted effort to involve blind and low vision people in the video description industry, which will be explored in a future AccessWorld article.
Participants in all groups were extremely responsive and enthusiastic, Miele said, providing the team with a wealth of ideas for improving the YouDescribe concept.
The Future of YouDescribe
Making video description more readily and abundantly available to blind and low-vision children and adults is essential to equal participation in most environments. The work at Smith-Kettlewell has brought focus to that problem and begun developing tools to address it. Both consumer organizations of blind people, ACB and NFB, have demonstrated that they, too, consider video description an essential educational and professional tool.
Miele says that the next step in the work of the VDRDC is to develop training materials to assist those amateur describers in recording useful descriptions. While the idea behind crowdsourcing description is to take advantage of the informal description offered by the friends, relatives, and coworkers of blind people every day, some guidelines for creating the best descriptions possible are needed.
Smith-Kettlewell has made significant progress in figuring out a way to make video description more available to the people who need it. At this writing, the organization is seeking funding to continue the work.Miele and his team hope to develop the training materials and continue developing the online tools for crowd-sourced description. It would be a sad day for all of us unable to see video images if, for any reason, the work did not continue.
Visit YouDescribe to view samples of described videos or register to record new descriptions.
