Audio description

With audio description, a video image or what is happening at an event is described by a narrator. This includes all important information such as the people, actions or locations. Presentations at events, text overlays or subtitles in videos are read aloud.

The aim of audio description is to make videos or events understandable and comprehensible for blind and visually impaired viewers. Up to now, audio description has been used more for videos (television). In recent years, however, audio description has increasingly been used at international events (congresses, conferences, etc.) to ensure accessibility.

However, audio description can also be used for other formats such as (musical) theatre performances, city tours, sporting events, etc. In museums, the term audio description is sometimes used for recorded guided tours with information about the exhibits.

Technically, audio description creates a new audio track. At international events, an audio channel and headphones/receivers must be made available to the participants for this purpose. Occasionally, audio description is also referred to as acoustic image description or audio commentary.

Films and television programmes where audio description supplements subtitling or translation into sign language are referred to as audio films or audio film versions.
 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international standard for the accessible design of Internet offerings that is binding in the European Union for websites and mobile applications and prescribes the use of audio description for videos for these media.

For the quality assurance of audio description, a standard was developed by the public broadcasters in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in cooperation with hearing film experts. This standard describes, among other things, the visual elements to be described, their placement and integration into the audio track and specifies what is to be described and how.