View source

''"Those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation."''

''-Helen Keller''

==How Do I Access The Draft of the Standards?==

Click the "[http://wiki.description-standards.dreamhosters.com/wiki/My_mediawiki:Community_Portal Community Portal]" link in the left-hand "Navigation" sidebar for links to the various sections of the draft of the ACB/ADP Standards. You can also use the links at the bottom of each page to navigate to the next section.

==Preface==

These Standards have been "gathered" by a core committee of ACB's Audio Description Project chaired by ACB's Vice President Kim Charlson. The word "gathered" is used as the work here is not, by and large, new: it is a "review of the literature," a culling of material that exists in documents that are widely available.  These standards are based on many years of experience with audio description in a wide range of contexts.

The Standards are intended to be overarching in nature, i.e., they are written to apply to audio description generally no matter the particular format in which it is used. There are, of course, significant distinctions that arise as describers work within media as opposed to developing a tour for a museum exhibition. Consequently, we have developed sub-sets of these standards that focus on Performing Arts, Media, and Visual Art.

The initial draft of this document was reviewed by the aforementioned committee (Rick Boggs of We See TV; Bryan Gould of WGBH; Christopher Gray, the immediate past-president of ACB; Deborah Lewis,Audio Description Coalition; Rebecca McGinnis, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Pat Sheehan, the President of the Maryland State Council of the Blind; and Joel Snyder, Director, Audio Description Project) and will now be posted on the web for input from anyone interested via this Wiki (developed by Thom Lohman of the Described and Captioned Media Program based upon the initial draft of the Standards as reviewed by the committee). The committee will monitor and review all contributions and a new version will be presented to the [http://adinternational.org/docs/AD-ACB-Invite.doc Audio Description Project Conference] <nowiki>[DOC]</nowiki> in Orlando, Florida, July 6-8, 2009. In addition, considerable Conference time will be allocated for further review of the Standards subsets on Media, Performing Arts, and Visual Art/Exhibitions. 

Finally, we want to credit with a large measure of appreciation the original source material on which this document is based; below are listed (with links, where appropriate) sources from which this material was adapted.

The material includes:

*[http://www.artbeyondsight.org/index.shtml Art Education for the Blind's] "[http://www.artbeyondsight.org/handbook/acs-guidelines.shtml Making Visual Art Accessible to People Who Are Blind and Visually Impaired]"
*[http://www.audiodescriptioncoalition.org/ Audio Description Coalition] Standards and Code of Conduct (the ADC Code of Conduct is reprinted, with permission, at the end of this document--[http://www.audiodescriptioncoalition.org/pdfregister.htm free registration] required to download ADC's Standards)
*"[http://joeclark.org/access/description/ad-principles.html Audio Description Techniques]" by Joe Clark (Canada)
*"[http://www.audiodescribe.com/about/articles/ad_international_journal_07.pdf Audio Description: The Visual Made Verbal]" [PDF] by Joel Snyder from The Didactics of Audio Visual Translation, edited by Jorge Diaz Cintas, John Benjamins Publishing, London, England and on-line course for Fractured University
*[http://www.dcmp.org Described and Captioned Media Program's] "[http://www.descriptionkey.org Description Key for Educational Media]" (developed by DCMP and the American Foundation of the Blind)
*ITC (Independent Television Commission, now [http://www.ofcom.org.uk/ OFCOM]) [http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/itc_publications/codes_guidance/audio_description/index.asp.html Guidance on Audio Description] (U.K.)
*[http://www.ncicap.org/desvid.asp National Captioning Institute] Described Media "Style Guide"
*Information, guide and [http://research-service.com/custom-essay-writing.html essay writing service].

==INTRODUCTION==

===The Audio Description User ==


They are individuals who are living with some degree of vision loss as the result of a wide range of causes. Most users of description are not totally blind; indeed, only 1-2% of the legally blind are congenitally blind (blind from birth); others are adventitiously blind or developed total blindness later in life. Most at one point had all or some of their sight and now they may have only peripheral vision, they may see only shapes, light and dark, colors, movement, shadows, blurs, or "blobs" -- or have "tunnel vision." Only 10% know Braille.

The American Foundation for the Blind reports that 21.2 million Americans have vision loss. While description was developed for people who are blind or visually impaired, many others may also benefit from description's concise, objective "translation" of the key visual components of various art genres and social settings.

Audio Description is an "Assistive Technology"; it is meant to enhance, not replace, the user's own powers of observation.

==[[Audio description|Go to Next Section "Audio Description"]]==