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Odd Job Jack described: a universal design approach to described video

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Abstract

People who are blind or have low vision have only recently begun to enjoy greater access to television and video through a new technology, called descriptive video information (DVI). Two styles of DVI production for animated comedy content were compared. The first model used a conventional description style, and the second used a first person narrative style. In addition, the first person narrative style was produced by the original animation creation team. Results from blind participants show that using the first person narrative style shows promise, especially since all participants seemed to have positive entertainment experiences with the first person narrative DVI version of the content.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Ontario Media Development Corporation for providing funding for this project through the Pioneering Content program. We would like to gratefully acknowledge the many contributors to this project including: Smiley Guy Studios, Don McKellar, Krystal Music Studios, and Ryerson University. Charles Silverman of Ryerson University initiated this project and provided many of the project ideas. John Stubbs provided much needed advice, insight and support from Audio-Vision Canada. Finally, we thank all of the blind and sighted participants who gave their time and energy for our user studies.

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Correspondence to D. I. Fels.

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Fels, D.I., Udo, J.P., Ting, P. et al. Odd Job Jack described: a universal design approach to described video. Univ Access Inf Soc 5, 73–81 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-006-0025-0

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