Media Access Canada (MAC) said that the lack of a similar guide in the past has led to a lack of consistency in description quality. The first chapter of Accessible Content Best Practices Guide for Digital Environments focuses on the audio description (called video description in North America) process and provides examples of best practice. The chapter offers a useful benchmark for audio description quality.
Subsequent chapters, to be released over the next two years, include discussion of convergence, telecommunications, closed captioning, end user interface and monitoring and measurement. The project has come about through collaboration with organisations such as the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
"Publication of these guidelines for descriptive video is an important first step towards our ultimate objective of a fully accessible broadcast day," noted Louise Gillis, National President of the Canadian Council of the Blind. "We are providing a blueprint to the broadcasters as to how they can best set about improving accessibility for our members."
The Canadian Government has committed to reaching Level AA Accessibility for each of its websites, a criterion of which is audio description for all video content.
Media Access Australia has produced its own quick guide to online audio description in this month’s W3C Column, written by project manager, Dr Scott Hollier.
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