The art we want to listen to. Reception study of audio description to museums and art galleries

Despite the growing interest in providing accessible content on the part of art galleries and museums in Poland, there has been no comprehensive study of the target group’s preferences in this respect. Additionally, the scriptwriters have to rely on a limited number of guidelines for this purpose, since most of the guidelines concern audio description for films. We believe that in order to bridge this gap one has to start by studying the preferences of the visually impaired. We present the results of an exhaustive reception study which covers the preferences of the blind and partially-sighted for audio description to art galleries and museums. We conducted a quantitative survey with 210 participants, the results of which laid basis for the elaboration of the guide to in-depth interviews with experienced users of audio description. These cover multiple topics and aim at answering some of the questions that practitioners feel that have to be addressed. Furthermore, we propose a framework for the final part of this study, comprising focus groups with both experienced and novice users of audio description. We believe that the results of this study will contribute to our understanding of the preferences of the visually impaired and, thus, will allow the authors of AD scripts to write even more engaging and intelligible audio descriptions.