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Describe America 2026: Access for Every Visitor, Everywhere

AD Training, Support, Project for $2,450:

We can help you complete your audio-described brochure. We can do that quickly, professionally, under the Micro-Purchase Thresholds (MPT) limits, and as a part of a larger, national effort to make the world more-accessible, like more than 200 National Park Service sites already have done.

Access Hound helps make your site more inclusive through practical, proven methods. One of the easiest ways to start making a more-accessible place is by providing an audio-described version of your printed brochure (known as the "Unigrid" at National Park Service sites). To-date, Access Hound has guided and supported more than 200 NPS sites in producing and publishing fully accessible, audio-described brochures. Our process is refined, efficient, and effective, from planning to production to stakeholder review to publication. We’ve built a workflow that generates legal compliance while also embodying the higher spirit of accessibility standards.

That's because Audio Description (AD) for visual media — such as photographs, maps, illustrations, tables, and charts — isn’t just a legal requirement. It’s the right and it's the socially just way to include everyone. Accessible media invites all visitors to fully experience your site.

Now it’s your turn to improve accessibility at your public place. Here is how to easily do it, at an affordable level of investment:

DESCRIBING: A horizontal color photograph. SYNOPSIS: Inside a bright visitor center, three visitors stand at a wood-topped counter facing a uniformed staff member. The staffer, an older man in glasses and a gray short-sleeve shirt with an arrowhead-shaped shoulder patch, works behind two open laptops. The customers lean in and talk, one holding a cane upright. Posters and exhibit panels glow softly in the background, framing the courteous exchange. IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION: Foreground, left to right: A gray-haired man with a shoulder bag stands slightly behind two others. Next, a man with a close-cropped head, green polo, and a large dark backpack faces the counter; his right hand rests near a slim cane with a black handle, held vertically. Closest to the counter, a man in a white T-shirt and bright blue-framed sunglasses gestures mid-conversation, his head turned toward the staffer. Right side: Behind the counter, an older man in glasses sits or leans forward, hands clasped near a keyboard. He wears a gray uniform shirt with nameplate and an arrowhead-shaped patch on the sleeve. Two laptops, a computer mouse, a pencil cup, and a small tent sign with circular icons sit along the counter’s edge. Background: Light-colored walls and exhibit panels with historic photos create a museumlike atmosphere. Warm daylight and soft focus keep attention on the people. The overall mood is helpful and attentive, as if the group is asking for help and support.

Access Hound researcher and editor Matt Bullen, left, orients a couple of Washington Council of the Blind members to the front desk at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, where NPS Unigrid brochures typically are kept. Access Hound also helps National Park Service sites to make audio-described versions of those brochures, signs, exhibits, and other important media offered on-site.

Contact Access Hound's Matt Bullen
  • We provide the open-access, open-source production software and free mobile app for dissemination: There is no charge to use the software or the app. You control and own the content. We provide a platform for you to make it and to share it.
  • We set up your online Access Hound project: You provide the PDF/Doc of your Unigrid brochure (or similar inaccessible product), and we convert that into a digital project ready to be described.
  • We train you on the production software (via Zoom): You get to control all of the writing and editing qualities. We support and guide that process, from beginning to end.
  • We connect you with audience members who are blind or who have low-vision for consultations: In our process, the first person in the room with you discussing describing strategies is a representative of the primary audience. And we also review with primary audience members before public release.
  • You write and edit all of the descriptions: Your team of describers — including at least one person who leads the project and is responsible for its completion — creates the content and has complete control over its voice, tone, and other qualities. Or, we can provide the edited descriptions, too, ready for final approval, for an additional fee based on the number and complexity of the images needing remediation.
  • We consult with you about difficult descriptions: You bring us the tough ones to describe, and we personally take you through those step by step, based on scholarly research and formal best practices.
  • We provide access to a customized GenAI tool to support your writing ideas: Our world-leading Access Hound Guidedogs are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to help you specifically with your description writing.
  • When you're ready to publish, we publish: You control the qualities and nuances of the description. We help you share your descriptions with the world, through a mobile app as well as a web link.

This national project is directed and managed by Dr. Brett Oppegaard, founder of Access Hound as well as The UniDescription Project. If you are interested in participating or have questions, please contact Access Hound researcher and editor Matt Bullen at (971) 258-1089 or [email protected]. Thank you for your consideration!

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