Accessible Events North West

Life is complex.
For most of my years I’ve thought that subtitles and captions are just for deaf and hard of hearing people, and that audio description was obviously for the benefit of Blind and visually impaired people. I now learn it’s not that simple.

Accessible Events Director Judith Garman’s new blog http://wp.me/p1tOeV-60 explores how many people on the autistic spectrum may benefit from captions and audio description.

This raises the question, if people on the autistic spectrum with perfect hearing and eyesight benefit from audio description and subtitles, who else benefits? Has anybody with good enough eyesight tried audio description and did they feel they gained from it?

Last year at Lanternhouse Cumbria, Anne Hornsby of Mind’s Eye demonstrated audio desccription at an All About Audiences seminar. The visual element of the Dukes Theatre peformance of 1984 was put into spoken English. We saw a screen with a stylised semi naked figure of a woman (Julia) dancing across a yellow corn field waving a red sash.

So I sat there and watched a semi naked woman dance across a field. With the interpreter translating, signing ‘semi naked woman dancing across a field’. Surely this is redundant? I mean I can see the whole thing! Yet that translation of audio description into sign language enriched the experience of 1984 for me.

So who else benefits from audio descriptions and subtitles?

Maybe for some users it’s not just access but enriching their creative experiences?

Notes:

Judith Garman’s blog http://wp.me/p1tOeV-60

I’m never going to know how a new mother feels when she holds up her baby for his first showing to the world.
What are her emotions? Is it a mixture of pride and fear?
A moment when the world can say.
“Well he does take after his parents – Poor baby.”

Well after over a year of planning, fundraising and development our website will be doing his first pudgy little wave to a small group of testers.
How are we going to feel when they say.
“I think he’s been doing himself too well on the Farley’s Rusks”

No. Joking aside, we are not precious about our work. This is an accessible events website and it needs to be both as accessible as possible for our users and directly meet their needs. We created it to make one central and fully accessible information point for accessible events. We want you to think to yourself. “I’m meeting Sarah on Friday – where shall we go to?” And then use our site to find fun – accessible – things that you want to do.

So for all you testers and users. Tell us if it works for you. Absolutely tell us if it doesn’t work because that is the best way we can make it better. To meet the needs of everyone who is searching for accessible events.

Just don’t tell me my baby has been overdosing on the Farley’s Rusks.