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Volunteer participant Crata Mizutani, left, studies the shape of the USS Arizona Memorial building by touching a paper model of it provided by UniD researchers, including Research Assistant Kira Swearingen.

Volunteer participant Crata Mizutani, left, studies the shape of the USS Arizona Memorial building by touching a paper model of it provided by our researchers, including Research Assistant Kira Swearingen.

We personalize our accessibility related services to fit your project

The Access Hound research-and-development team has worked with about 200 national parks and other public institutions to train them and their staff members on writing high-quality audio descriptions, primarily for the benefit of people who are blind. The team also specializes in making public places more accessible, in general, including exploring combinations of tactile objects and Audio Description.

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Audio Description Production

The 5-Step Access Hound Process

Our mission is to promote widespread societal inclusion for people who cannot see or cannot see well through the ubiquitous integration of Audio Description. We have developed a comprehensive process for making such high-quality accessible media, which directly includes people who are DeafBlind, blind, or who have low-vision as a part of the audio description creation process.

The team’s leader, Dr. Brett Oppegaard, has been the principal investigator on multiple national grants related to media accessibility, with support for such research provided by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, and the U.S. National Park Service, as well as from accessibility-supportive corporations, such as Google.

Most distinctively, the Access Hound team grounds its approaches to complex accessibility issues in the empirical research of Dr. Oppegaard and other world leaders in this area. In other words, we do not guess. We research and test.

The second virtual Descriptathon had a large support team behind it. This image shows a conference room in Crawford Hall at the University of Hawai'i, where most of the core group of Descriptathon administrators gathered to host the 28-team event. These eight people are sitting around a rectangular table. If you imagine the table as sort of a Daliesque clock, with Research Assistant Tuyet Hayes, in a bright pink shirt at the Noon position, the rest of the team, clockwise, is: Consultant Annie Leist, Consultant Sina Bahram, Developer Joe Oppegaard, Co-PI Thomas Conway, PI Brett Oppegaard, NPS Accessibility Coordinator Michele Hartley, and Research Assistant Phil Jordan. Everyone has a laptop in front of them and is busily working, except Jordan, who is standing next to Hartley and talking with her about a piece of paper he is holding.

The second virtual Descriptathon had a large support team behind it. This image shows a conference room in Crawford Hall at the University of Hawai'i, where most of the core group of Descriptathon administrators gathered to host the 28-team event. These eight people are sitting around a rectangular table. If you imagine the table as sort of a Daliesque clock, with Research Assistant Tuyet Hayes, in a bright pink shirt at the Noon position, the rest of the team, clockwise, is: Consultant Annie Leist, Consultant Sina Bahram, Developer Joe Oppegaard, Co-PI Thomas Conway, PI Brett Oppegaard, NPS Accessibility Coordinator Michele Hartley, and Research Assistant Phil Jordan. Everyone has a laptop in front of them and is busily working, except Jordan, who is standing next to Hartley and talking with her about a piece of paper he is holding.

Audio Description Training Workshops

The Access Hound team has trained more than 1,000 people from various organizations in the art of writing impactful, accurate, and efficient Audio Description. These descriptions make public places more accessible and more inclusive to all.

Staff training options include:

  • A half-day workshop (virtual, via Zoom)
  • A full-day workshop (virtual via Zoom or in-person)
  • A multi-day customized workshop (virtual via Zoom or in-person)
  • Or a full hackathon-like Descriptathon experience.

Descriptathons are special events that require 16 or 32 teams to participate. Each organizational team typically includes 3-5 staff members. Those teams will be provided with at least least two representatives from the community who are blind or who have low-vision.

Dr. Brett Oppegaard has been invited to share his research results around the world, including at peer-reviewed venues throughout the United States as well as in formal presentations in Canada, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Kenya, Spain, and Norway.

Dr. Brett Oppegaard has been invited to share his research results around the world, including at peer-reviewed venues throughout the United States as well as in formal presentations in Canada, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Kenya, Spain, and Norway.

DESCRIBING: A simple digital illustration representing web accessibility attributes. SYNOPSIS: The top of the illustration shows a simplified web browser window as indicated by the typical browser interface with three circular buttons (available in red, yellow, and blue) on the top left corner. Those buttons represent minimize, maximize, and close functions. Below this browser interface, there are three speech balloons, each in a different color and containing different HTML attributes. The first speech balloon, in orange, contains the text role='button', which is used to assign an explicit role to an element. The second speech balloon is green and includes aria-label='...', a way of adding accessible labels to elements. The third speech balloon is in teal and shows tabindex='3', which defines the tab order of the element for keyboard navigation. The positioning of these speech balloons, centered within the browser window framework, underlines their importance in web accessibility.

DESCRIBING: A simple digital illustration representing web accessibility attributes.
SYNOPSIS: The top of the illustration shows a simplified web browser window as indicated by the typical browser interface with three circular buttons (available in red, yellow, and blue) on the top left corner. Those buttons represent minimize, maximize, and close functions. Below this browser interface, there are three speech balloons, each in a different color and containing different HTML attributes. The first speech balloon, in orange, contains the text "role='button'," which is used to assign an explicit role to an element. The second speech balloon is green and includes "aria-label='...'," a way of adding accessible labels to elements. The third speech balloon is in teal and shows "tabindex='3'," which defines the tab order of the element for keyboard navigation. The positioning of these speech balloons, centered within the browser window framework, underlines their importance in web accessibility.

Website Accessibility Review & Remediation

Web laws and standards have been steadily increasing in sophistication in recent years, requiring deeper and deeper levels of accessibility, for all types of audiences.

The Access Hound team can help you understand the current state of your website or mobile app, and how to make it more accessible to all users. We have been building websites since 1996 and we specialize websites that meet the highest WCAG standards possible for a project. Tested by real people on real devices with real feedback.

For a status report, the Access Hound team can do a full review of your website or mobile app and document any variances from federal law requirements as well as industry best practices.

After we determine the current status of your site, we have engineers on staff that can make the required updates for your website, or train your engineers on how to write more accessible code.

A screenshot of Brett as the keynote speaker at a half-day workshop in Montreal for Radio Canada.

A screenshot of Brett as the keynote speaker at a half-day workshop in Montreal for Radio Canada.

Accessibility Consulting

News media organizations actively are seeking new audiences. Making more-accessible Journalism is an opportunity for the industry’s future. The Access Hound team can help any news organization to make more-accessible media throughout their site.

Accessible News

News media organizations actively are seeking new audiences. Making more-accessible Journalism is an opportunity for the industry’s future. The Access Hound team can help any news organization to make more-accessible media throughout their site.

University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Ph.D. student Sajja Koirala tests Audio Description from The UniDescription Project at Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. Koirala, who lives in Ohio, has made Cuyahoga Valley a key place for her research into

University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Ph.D. student Sajja Koirala tests Audio Description from The UniDescription Project at Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. Koirala, who lives in Ohio, has made Cuyahoga Valley a key place for her research into "Complete Trip" logistics. That means she is studying the planning activities needed for a person who is blind to successfully visit a national park. Koirala is blind and an active user of Audio Description in national parks. In this horizontal photo, she is shown wearing a long, red jacket. She is listening to audio from her smartphone via a set of wired headphones. She is standing on a bridge overlooking a waterway.

Why Choose Us?

Access Hound has a proven track record and an unmatched network in the world of audio description.

We do not guess. We research and test.

We have trained more than 1,000 people and made the world a more-accessible place.

We are experts in accessibility & technology.

We're here for you. If your project is just starting or finished a year ago, you can count on us.

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