AuDIVA: A tool for embedding Audio Descriptions to enhance Video Accessibility for Persons with Visual Impairments

Inclusion of online videos on a website attracts a large number of audience because of its ease of perception. Even though rendering videos on the web is advantageous, persons with disabilities face difficulties in accessing the content. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) has recommended closed captions for persons with hearing problems and Audio descriptions for the persons with visual problems, to remove the barriers in making the video content accessible. In this paper, we have incorporated a technique called Narrating the scene before the act. With this, persons with visual impairments will get a proper understanding of the context of the scene and they will be in a better position to easily grasp the content. We have designed a tool, entitled AuDIVA (Audio Description Inserter for Video Accessibility) which will insert the audio descriptions before the scene in the video at specified intervals. A survey conducted shows that the technique eases tasks for web developers to provide audio descriptions in the video.

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