Audio description

The accessibility of video-on-demand (VOD) services is a hot topic in Australia, the UK and other countries at the moment. There have been calls for legislation to be introduced unless the VOD services make acceptable progress in introducing captions and audio description voluntarily. But what constitutes accessible progress? In the UK, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), Action on Hearing Loss, and Sense (who represent people who are deafblind or have associated disabilities) have issued a report that attempts to answer that question.

The Federal Government has released the submissions it has received in response to its review of digital television regulations, with a number of them focusing on accessibility issues.

The US state of Hawaii has brought in state legislation to mandate the provision of captions and audio description (described as “descriptive narration” in the Bill) in all cinemas where the cinema operator has more than two locations (that is three or more separate cinemas or cinema complexes).

Media Access Australia spoke with Robert Osztolykan, blind gamer and creator of the petition to make Valve’s gaming platform Steam accessible to people who are blind or vision impaired. Robert shares his motivation to start the petition, his experiences playing mainstream titles, his thoughts on the current generation of gaming and why developers need to consider accessibility.