Many people who are blind, have low vision or learning difficulties use assistive technology in their daily lives.
With visual information, this means an audio description is read out to describe what they can’t see.
In this activity, you’ll work with your team to understand:
A good audio description will explain and narrate what’s happening visually for things like:
If you’re together physically, you’ll need:
If your team is working remotely, your participants will need a way to watch an online video and a place to write.
When you choose a tool, think if anyone in your team has access requirements and if they’ll be able to easily use it.
Set your meeting at a time where you’ll get the best results.
This means to think about the diverse needs of each of your team members.
Think of things like this:
Always acknowledge the traditional owners before you start.
It shows your respect for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people.
Go around the room and have everyone confirm their pronouns or, ask everyone to display them either in their screen name or written down on a piece of paper.
This helps support transgender and gender diverse people and instil empathy for diverse people in your teams’ minds.
Ask everyone to let you know if they have any access requirements to take part in this activity.
Remember, it’s up to them to share information about themselves to you or the group.
Show this video to your team so they know what audio description is:
Confirm the paired teams, make sure each team has access to the video and that they have different 1-minute clips to use.
Ask each person to watch their 1-minute clip and write their own audio description for it. Their partner isn’t allowed to see or hear the clip they’re writing about.
When writing, they need to describe everything in the scene including:
Their writing needs to be:
Their aim is to have a description that someone who can’t see the visual would understand what’s happening on screen.
Ask everyone to read their description out loud to their partner while the clip plays. The person listening isn’t allowed to see the screen.
Once the reading is done, have the listener watch the clip and report if it matched up with the audio description they heard.
If the clip plays quicker than people can read, pause the video.
As a group, discuss which audio descriptions stood out in the team and why.
We consulted with staff networks to check the language in this tool is appropriate and respectful.
For this tool, we consulted with: