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  Strategic Leadership in Accessibility
Accessibility standards — with many overlapping and opaque rules — can be confusing. You need a well-trained guide. Our Fractional Accessibility Leadership service helps you to streamline workflows, reduce backlogs, and drive strategic initiatives with guidance from seasoned accessibility leaders.
  Innovative Audio Description Software
We created the world’s first software suite dedicated to static Audio Description, along with the first GenAI toolkit designed to support AD writers, both of which have become essential infrastructure transforming production and review processes.
  Audio Description Training & Workshops
We’ve trained more than 1,000 professionals in writing impactful, accurate Audio Description. From half-day intensives to week-long workshops and hackathon-style events, our training creates enduring organizational impacts.
  Audio Description Production / Review
Our production and review services ensure Audio Description is seamlessly integrated into your media products, helping you to reach wider audiences and to support authentic inclusion for people who are DeafBlind, or blind, or who have low-vision.
  Web & Mobile Accessibility Remediation
As web accessibility laws and WCAG standards grow more complex, our experts audit, remediate, and future-proof your websites and mobile apps so that everyone can access your content with confidence and in the ways that they want.
Tools
Audio Description Production
- The Access Hound Software Suite Access Hound software powers AD production and review processes worldwide — including use by 200+ U.S. National Park Service sites across 49 states, as well as at public attractions in Canada, and the United Kingdom — backed by more than $1 million in federal and corporate investments, including by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, and Google.
AI Tools
- Access Hound's Guidedogs The 'Dogs give AD writers immediate coaching, support, and guidance as powered by a tailor-made GenAI algorithm based on the latest scholarly research; no technical setup (i.e., prompt engineering, or downloads) required.
- Journalism Watchdogs Trained in Journalism scholarship, these 'Dogs provide GenAI-powered feedback for nonfiction writing that helps to sharpen your focus, tighten prose, and write with clarity.
For Your Specific Needs
- We Make Customized Solutions Seeking a GenAI technical solution built just for you and your organization? We design custom media-making tools tailored to your unique goals, objectives, and challenges.
  About

  In the News (Hot Off the Presses!)
Our thought-leadership columns — written about accessibility, inclusive design, and barriers people face getting access to information in this rapidly changing technological age — are provided for free, allowing you to read and share insights from the leading-edge of accessibility research.
  Who is the Access Hound team?
Our core leadership team has collaborated for more than 20 years, bringing diverse, grounded, and high-level expertise to your organizational needs. We regularly collaborate with dozens of trusted specialists, including our lead partners.
  Dr. Brett Oppegaard, Founder
Brett, who holds a Ph.D. in Technical Communication & Rhetoric and has decades of accessibility and media-production experience, blends a scholarly background in accessibility and interaction design (UX / UI) with extensive professional media-production skills.
  Joe Oppegaard, Founder / CTO
Joe, with decades of CTO experience, is a seasoned project manager, interface designer, and programmer, with award-winning experiences building innovative accessibility tools that bridge inclusion needs with emerging technologies.
  Stewart McCullough, Founder / CEO
Stewart, with decades of CEO experience, brings the big-picture vision, ethical commitment, and logistical skills that guide Access Hound. He ensures your services and products get done on deadline, meeting (or exceeding) expectations. Contact Us
  Guidedogs

  Describe Now
No matter your experience level, you can upload an image (or paste a description text) into our system, choose your 'Dogs, and get instant feedback. Just press, "Release the Hounds!"

  Our Dogs
The Access Hound Guidedogs are AI-powered writing coaches designed to help you to create stronger Audio Description. Just like other coaches, they don’t replace writers. They support them with high-quality, constructive, and detailed feedback.

  API
Our custom-built API lets you send images, at scale, and receive immediate feedback from the 'Dogs. This API is perfect for addressing inertia around backlogs in large digital collections and also in improving enterprise workflows.

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About Access Hound

A trio that has been working together for 20 years, the leadership team of Access Hound have worked on hundreds of projects together. From founding the UniDescription Project, running a web development company, and building hundreds of websites for companies across dozens of sectors, Access Hound was founded by brothers Brett and Joe Oppegaard and trusted partner Stewart McCullough. Brett, the university professor, with a Ph.D. in technical communication and rhetoric, providing the academic expertise on media-accessibility topics, Joe, the computer programmer, with decades of experience as a CTO, providing the programming expertise and creating novel media-accessibility tools, and Stewart, the CEO, with the big picture and logistical knowledge to run a viable company, bringing together everything into a valuable service.

Together — and with a lot of help from a broad community of supporters around the world, especially within the U.S. National Park Service and the American Council of the Blind — the Access Hound team has led media-accessibility initiatives throughout the United States and also in other countries around the world seeking to make more-inclusive media, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy.

Our mission is to co-create, with people who are blind, a more-accessible future by providing Audio Description training and production services, plus extremely useful Open Access, Open Source webtools that help users to audio describe any type of inaccessible visual media, including photographs, maps, charts, tables, brochures, wall texts, wayside signs, exhibits, etc., in a prompt and professional manner. Those descriptions also get heard and validated by representative members of the target audience before being released to the general public, keeping human sensibilities at the forefront of the production process.

Access Hound CTO Joe Oppegaard, with smartphone in hand, at the base of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, testing our Audio Description systems. Joe is wearing a black shirt and dark sunglasses, contrasting with his blond hair and white earbuds, which are connected to his smartphone, as he listens to content on the phone underneath the massive marble columns at the remains of the Parthenon. The Access Hound team has worked with the University of Piraeus in Athens to audio describe parts of the Acropolis as well as various other major public attractions around the world.

Access Hound CTO Joe Oppegaard, with smartphone in hand, at the base of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, testing our mobile AD systems for their worldwide as well as localized impacts.