Resource
Description Key
Best practices and guidelines for describing visual media for people who are blind, visually impaired, or deafblind
Visual media is often inaccessible to people who are blind or visually impaired, and audio descriptions are intended to provide concise, objective translation of media’s key visual components. The Description Key site offers guidelines on how to create descriptions, including what to describe, as well as how to describe. The hope is that these guidelines will increase the availability of predominantly visual curriculum to children and youth who are blind, deaf-blind, or who have low vision
Developed through a partnership between the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) and the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), the Description Key began as recommendations, suggestions, and best practices culled from an extensive literature search and meta-analysis in 2006. AFB assembled an expert panel in media description and education for children with visual impairments to help evaluate media description strategies for educational material.