Rescribe: Authoring and Automatically Editing Audio Descriptions

TL;DR

Rescribe is a tool that assists authors in creating and refining audio descriptions for videos by optimizing timing and content, making the process easier and more effective especially for novices and improving accessibility for visually impaired users.

Contribution

We introduce Rescribe, a novel tool that automates and optimizes the creation and editing of audio descriptions, enhancing accessibility and reducing errors for novice authors.

Findings

Users preferred Rescribe-edited descriptions over extended descriptions.

Novice users made fewer placement errors with Rescribe.

Rescribe effectively optimizes audio description timing and content.

Abstract

Audio descriptions make videos accessible to those who cannot see them by describing visual content in audio. Producing audio descriptions is challenging due to the synchronous nature of the audio description that must fit into gaps of other video content. An experienced audio description author will produce content that fits narration necessary to understand, enjoy, or experience the video content into the time available. This can be especially tricky for novices to do well. In this paper, we introduce a tool, Rescribe, that helps authors create and refine their audio descriptions. Using Rescribe, authors first create a draft of all the content they would like to include in the audio description. Rescribe then uses a dynamic programming approach to optimize between the length of the audio description, available automatic shortening approaches, and source track lengthening approaches. Authors can iteratively visualize and refine the audio descriptions produced by Rescribe, working in concert with the tool. We evaluate the effectiveness of Rescribe through interviews with blind and visually impaired audio description users who preferred Rescribe-edited descriptions to extended descriptions. In addition, we invite novice users to create audio descriptions with Rescribe and another tool, finding that users produce audio descriptions with fewer placement errors using Rescribe.