Audio Description 101: Audibilizing Museum Collections for Improved Accessibility

ID: WMA2026_598

Track:

Broken workflows, enormous backlogs, too many other things to do**. **There are many barriers holding museums back from being more accessible and inclusive, especially for people who are blind or who have low-vision. This workshop will illustrate benefits of an inverted thought, in which museums cannot afford such exclusion any longer and need to open their doors more broadly to more people. The session starts with AD foundations and motivations and ends with completed descriptions.

Session Information

Format: Half-day workshop (9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.)

Fee: $25 for all materials needed

Uniqueness: Media accessibility, especially for people who are blind, is a dire need in this field. This workshop covers the basics and gets museum staff writing descriptions.

Objectives: Participants will learn ways in which a single accessibility project can be a catalyst for change, creating an organizational model for higher inclusivity. They also will: Understand what Audio Description (AD) is and why it matters globally and locally, through an overview of the field. Explore different AD genres with a focus on one specific genre and its best practices. Options include: People, Objects, Maps, Tables, Charts, and Exhibit Collages. One of those will be chosen as the focus of this particular workshop. Gain hands-on experience writing and using the Access Hound Studio platform and the Access Hound Guidedogs GenAI writing-support tool, involving a quick software training session, followed by practice and use of the software. Write, share, and refine Audio Description of their museum’s own image through multiple drafts, including peer review and discussions. And, publish their final description, if they so choose, instantly, for online use and dissemination.

Engagement: Audience members will identify at least one image in their museum collection that they would like to make more-accessible via Audio Description. After learning about AD foundations and motivations, we will turn to production activities in which the participants use our open-access software at Access Hound (www.accesshound.com) to write, rewrite, and publish the description of their image, as ready for public dissemination and consumption, including for use on their website, social media, and archival metadata.

Relationship to Theme:

Audience

Audiences: Curators/Scientists/Historians 

Professional Level: All levels 

Scalability: Every media accessibility project for people who are blind or who have low-vision starts with a project concept, a scope, and the production and refinement of descriptions. This workshop creates a model that can be repeated and scaled at will.

Participants