Audio description

A resource for including students with visual impairments in accessing geometric figures

Abstract

Audio description is a communication and information accessibility resource that converts information from visual to verbal signs, primarily serving visually impaired audiences in the process of mentally constructing images. Thus, this article focuses on audio description proposals for geometric figures found in the 2020 entrance exams of the Federal Institute of Bahia. The audiodescriptions of the geometric figures were based on the Methodology for Audiodescribing Still Images (MAIE). The aim of this research was to assess the effectiveness of the parameters proposed by MAIE in the comprehension of images by visually impaired people. To do so, we relied on the perceptual-descriptive evaluation of a visually impaired consultant. Initially, the category to which the images belong was identified, in order to then define the perspective and angle from which they are presented to the viewer. Next, the way in which the information/elements of the geometric shapes should be presented inthe audio description script was described.Finally, an audio description proposal was presented for each geometric shape. It is clear that the observations made by the consultant provided very important guidelines for the textual construction of the audio description scripts, but they did not question the principles of the MAIE. Thus, we conclude that the audio descriptions proposed based on the parameters of the MAIE produced objective scripts for the audio descriptions of the geometric figures, respecting, for example, the orientation of the description from the general to the specific and the importance of the location of each element presented.