I consider myself lucky to attend a number of conferences specific to blindness, visual impairment, and technology. Well, at the 2013 AFB Leadership Conference, IBM Research just raised the bar for accessibility in my eyes. The innovative work they're doing to create accessibility options for educational videos got me out of my seat. I feel like I am now an IBM Research groupie. The work that Chieko Asakawa, Hiro Takagi, and Peter Fay presented on during the preconference and general conference is making video description and captioning for video content a realistic option for large amounts of video.
Their work in creating video description software would allow users to insert their own video description. IBM clients would be able to load a video, pause the video at specific points, insert a text description, determine the length of the pause, and continue. The software uses synthetic speech to read the video description during the selected pause. You have the freedom to determine whether a pause is needed, but I particularly love this option. This allows persons who are not experts in description technology to create audio-described video. Does this blow your mind? It did for me. The IBM Research representatives stated that they estimate that only about one percent of educational video has video description. Do you remember the educational videos that you had watch during your education? I do, and many of them would need a ton of description.
IBM Research didn’t stop there. They developed a software solution that uses voice recognition solutions to caption video. So, a person could load a video into the software and allow it to caption the video. They can go through and edit or correct the captions as needed. The IBM Research team demonstrated the technology at the conference, and again, I was simply blown away. I am probably just a big dork, but I can see such a wide use for these types of technologies.
It doesn't stop there! The team has worked to develop a couple of unique crowdsourcing options to help improve accessibility on the web. The crowdsourcing solution that stands out most for me is "Social Access" or "Social Accessibility." This allows a person to have a toolbar available with the option to note accessibility issues with a page. For example, "The headers on this page are missing." Then an individual can go and select text, then select headers, and enact the appropriate headers for the page. So, for others using this crowdsourcing option, they would be able to see the note specific to the issue and view the page in the corrected format. This helps the managers of the website realize the issue, and allows users to view the site in an appropriate manner. How exciting is this? What a great use of crowdsourcing to improve the accessibility of the web pages.
I have jumped on board the IBM Research and IBM Accessibility bandwagons, so why not join me! If you feel left out, don't miss the 2014 AFB Leadership Conference in Brooklyn, February 27—March 1.
Laptop and filmstrip image courtesy of Shutterstock.
