ABSTRACT
Unigrid" design specifications created by Massimo Vignelli have provided the standards for the layout of paper brochures at U.S. National Park Service sites for more than three decades. These brochures offer visitors a familiar analog presentation of visual information, blending text, photographs, maps, and illustrations. These materials, however, are not accessible to people who are blind, have low vision, or a print disability. The National Park Service for decades has been challenged -- by requirements and principle -- to offer alternate formats that provide equivalent experiences and information of these print materials. In other words, people who are blind or visually impaired should have access to a "brochure" experience, too. This exploratory study, funded by the National Park Service, takes a new approach to this long-term problem by conducting a content analysis of current Unigrid brochures to determine their fundamental components, found in practice. This components-based approach is intended to provide clear pathways for cross-modal translation of the printed material into audio-described media, which then, can be efficiently distributed via mobile apps, as an extension of these original components.
- Audio Description Coalition (2015). A Brief History of Audio Description in the U.S. Retrieved April 26, 2015, from http://www.audiodescriptioncoalition.org/history.html.Google Scholar
- Braun, S. (2008). Audiodescription research: State of the art and beyond. Translation Studies in the New Millennium, 6, 14--30.Google Scholar
- Braun, S. (2011). Creating coherence in audio description. Meta: Journal des traducteursMeta:/Translators' Journal, 56(3), 645--662.Google Scholar
- Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2014). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
- De Coster, K., & Mühleis, V. (2007). Intersensorial translation: Visual art made up by words. In J. Diaz Cintas, P. Orero, & A. Remael (Eds.), Media for All: Subtitling for the Deaf, Audiodescription, and Sign Language. (pp. 189--200). Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
- Fryer, L., & Freeman, J. (2012). Presence in those with and without sight: Audio description and its potential for virtual reality applications. Journal of CyberTherapy & Rehabilitation, 5(1), 15--23.Google Scholar
- Goldsmith, S. (2012). Designing for the disabled: the new paradigm. New York, NY: Routledge.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Gray, D. E. (2014). Doing research in the real world. London: Sage.Google Scholar
- Krippendorff, K. (2013). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
- Maszerowska, A., Matamala, A., & Orero, P. (2014). Audio Description: New perspectives illustrated (Vol. 112): John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
- National Federation of the Blind. (2014). Blindness Statistics. Retrieved Nov. 1, 2014, 2014, from https://nfb.org/blindness-statistics.Google Scholar
- National Park Service (2015a). Glimpses of Park Brochures. Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/brochures/index.htm.Google Scholar
- National Park Service (2015b). Circulars of Information / Guidebooks / Official Maps and Guides / Park Brochures. Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/brochures/year-1910.htm.Google Scholar
- National Park Service (2015c). National Park Service Overview. Retrieved April 26, 2015, http://www.nps.gov/policy/DOrders/DOrder42.html.Google Scholar
- National Park Service (2015d). The Unigrid System of Brochures. Retrieved April 25, 2015, http://www.nps.gov/hfc/products/pubs/pubs-04a-c.cfm.Google Scholar
- National Park Service (2015e). Unigrid. Retrieved April 25, 2015, http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/brochures/unigrid/index.htm.Google Scholar
- National Park Service (2015f). The United States Department of the Interior Budget Justifications. Retrieved April 26, 2015, http://www.nps.gov/aboutus/upload/FY-2015-Greenbook-Linked.pdf.Google Scholar
- National Park Service (2015g). National Park Service Overview. Retrieved April 26, 2015, http://www.nps.gov/news/upload/NPS-Overview-2015-update-2-25.pdf.Google Scholar
- Poethe, H. (2005). Audiodeskription: Entstehung und Wesen Einer Textsorte. In U. Fix (Ed.), Hörfilm: BildKompensation durch Sprache (pp. 33--48). Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag.Google Scholar
- Salway, A. (2007). A corpus-based analysis of audio description. In J. Diaz Cintas, P. Orero, & A. Remael (Eds.), Media for all: Subtitling for the deaf, audio description and sign language (pp. 151--174). Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
- Tallon, L. (2008). Digital technologies and the museum experience: Handheld guides and other media. Landham, MD, Altamira Press.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Envisioning mobile apps for audio description: exploring universal design of national park service brochures
Recommendations
From seeing to hearing: Lessons learned from a research-based design project focused upon audio description, print-to-acoustic remediation, and mobile-app delivery
SIGDOC '16: Proceedings of the 34th ACM International Conference on the Design of CommunicationThis paper describes the process we undertook to address a significant technical communication issue embedded within traditional information-distribution procedures in the U.S. National Park Service: The bureau's nationally circulated brochures, as ...
Living Disability Theory: Reflections on Access, Research, and Design
ASSETS '20: Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and AccessibilityAccessibility research and disability studies are intertwined fields focused on, respectively, building a world more inclusive of people with disability and understanding and elevating the lived experiences of disabled people. Accessibility research ...
The role of accessibility in a universal web
W4A '14: Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference"Universal design" is the process of creating products that are usable by people with the widest possible range of abilities, operating within the widest possible range of situations; whereas "accessibility" primarily refers to design for people with ...
Comments