Use of narration to develop an audio video describer for the sight impaired

Visually impaired individuals are unable to go through their daily activities normally and one of the main deprivations caused by it is the access to information for learning a challenge for independent living. Due to this limitation the researchers explore the use of narration for description and integrate this to a chosen Malay short movie film with the belief that lessons can be learned from movie films and may reflect significant values to one's life. In developing the Audio Video describer (AVD) it made use of video editing software to incorporate the description of movie scenes. The developed experimental model of the audio video describer was evaluated by thirty six sighted students in terms of language, voice, pitch and timing used for audio description. A teacher-made questionnaire used in the survey contained 10 items on respondents' feeling and experience of viewing the AVD model. It was rated in a 5 point Likert scale from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree. The results showed that through the use of narration, the audio video describer model is suitable to help the sight impaired understand the movie. The current research will progress by using the experimental model to sight impaired school children for its effectiveness.