Imagine an audio-described college campus that supports full and independent use by people who are blind or visually impaired. Those just don't exist ... yet. The researchers who brought you The UniDescription Project – which is focused on improving media accessibility at U.S. National Park Service sites – are expanding their ideas onto their home campus, too, at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Members of the Hawaii Association of the Blind, ACB's local chapter, have been working with the researchers to improve the descriptions. Those volunteers shown in this image include, from left to right, Jonah Sniffen, Natalie Barrett, Sharon Ige, Laureen Kukino, and Sajja Koirala. Another volunteer on this day, not pictured, was Vickie Kennedy. They are listening to campus description and walking down a ramp together out of UH's Shidler College of Business. The ramp is set up for two-traffic, with one side going up and into the building and the other going down and away from the building. This image shows the HAB/ACB group leaving the building after they had conducted various field tests inside the structure. They all are using canes to guide them, and they are holding audio records, to capture their thoughts as they navigate the area. Through this work, the researchers and HAB/ACB members hope to set a new standard for campus accessibility nationwide and also to build the tools and practices for others to freely follow those models, through open-source systems. So far, this research group, led by principal investigator Brett Oppegaard, has received two campus grants, totaling $5,000, to get the project started, and he and his students already have created more than 300 descriptions for the campus, with hundreds more to go. The descriptions are focused on specific places of interest on campus, such as buildings, and on describing routes between and among those buildings.
Courtesy of Brett Oppegaard.
