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Volunteer participant Crata Mizutani, left, studies the shape of the USS Arizona Memorial building by touching a paper model of it provided by UniD researchers, including Research Assistant Kira Swearingen. Swearingen watches Mizutani examine the model while Mizutani, who is blind, provides think-aloud reactions to what sheʻs feeling and what sheʻs already learned that November 2023 day about the structure through Audio Description. This photograph, which has a horizontal orientation, shows Mizutani seated and leaning to her right while feeling the model in her lap with her left hand. Sheʻs wearing a bright pink t-shirt, and she has long, black hair. Swearingen, wearing a Go Pro camera around her neck to record Mizutaniʻs actions and observations, is seated next to Mizutani, on her left. Swearingen is looking carefully and kindly at Mizutani, studying her movements and listening to her comments. Swearingen is wearing a black tank top, and she has her long hair in a bun.

Volunteer participant Crata Mizutani, left, studies the shape of the USS Arizona Memorial building by touching a paper model of it provided by our researchers, including Research Assistant Kira Swearingen.

We tailor accessibility services to fit your project and your specific needs

The Access Hound research-and-development team has collaborated with public attractions of all types, including more than 200 U.S. National Park Service, Parks Canada, and National Parks UK sites, plus universities, libraries, aquariums, botanical gardens, performing arts centers, public-art collections, wildlife refuges, and zoos. We specialize in Audio Description services, including combinations of AD, tactile models, and physical environments.

Let's talk about your project!

Audio Description Training and Workshops

Co-located in the Silicon Forest of Portland, Oregon, and the Silicon Valley North (aka Seattle, Washington), the Access Hound team has trained more than 1,000 people in more than 10 countries around the world in the pragmatics of writing and sharing accurate, efficient, and impactful Audio Description. These descriptions make public places more-accessible and more-inclusive to everyone but are especially needed by people who are DeafBlind or blind, or with low-vision or print dyslexia. People who like to learn via audio and podcasts also love AD, which remediates visual information, such as massive text blocks, into audible information that can be heard — hands-free — for all types of situations and audiences. Training and workshop options include:

Staff training options include:

  • A half-day training or workshop (virtual, via Zoom)
  • A full-day training or workshop (virtual via Zoom or in-person)
  • A multi-day customized training or workshop (virtual via Zoom or in-person)
  • Or a full hackathon-like Descriptathon experience.

Descriptathons are special events that require 16+ teams to participate, with at least three core organizational contributers per team. Each organizational team typically includes 3-5 staff members but can include more, without additional costs, up to 8. Those teams will be provided with at least least two representatives from the community who are blind or who have low-vision.

Let's train your staff together Learn more
Dr. Brett Oppegaard has been invited to share his research results around the world, including at peer-reviewed venues throughout the United States as well as in formal presentations in Canada, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Kenya, Spain, and Norway.

Dr. Brett Oppegaard has been invited to share his research results around the world, including at peer-reviewed venues throughout the United States as well as in formal presentations in Canada, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Kenya, Spain, and Norway.

Audio Description Production

The "Access Hound Way," focused on inclusion

Our mission is to promote widespread societal inclusion for people who cannot see or cannot see well through the ubiquitous integration of Audio Description. We have developed a comprehensive process for making such high-quality accessible media, which directly includes people who are DeafBlind, blind, or who have low-vision in all parts of the Audio Description creation, dissemination, and review processes.

The team’s leader, Dr. Brett Oppegaard, has been the principal investigator on multiple national grants related to media accessibility, with support for such research provided by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, and the U.S. National Park Service, as well as from accessibility-supportive corporations, such as Google.

Most distinctively, the Access Hound team grounds its approaches to complex accessibility issues in the empirical research of Dr. Oppegaard and other world leaders in this area. In other words, we do not guess. We research and test.

Let's make the world a more-accessible place Learn more
DESCRIBING: A horizontal color photograph. DESCRIPTION: The second virtual Descriptathon had a large support team working behind the scenes on it. This image shows a conference room in Crawford Hall at the University of Hawai'i, where most of the core group of Descriptathon administrators gathered to host the 28-team event. These eight people are sitting around a rectangular table. If you imagine the table as sort of a Daliesque clock, with Research Assistant Tuyet Hayes, in a bright pink shirt at the Noon position, the rest of the team, clockwise, is: Consultant Annie Leist, Consultant Sina Bahram, Developer Joe Oppegaard, Co-PI Thomas Conway, PI Brett Oppegaard, NPS Accessibility Coordinator Michele Hartley, and Research Assistant Phil Jordan. Everyone has a laptop in front of them and is busily working, except Jordan, who is standing next to Hartley and talking with her about a piece of paper he is holding.

The second virtual Descriptathon had a large support team behind it. This image shows a conference room in Crawford Hall at the University of Hawai'i, where most of the core group of Descriptathon administrators gathered to host the 28-team event. These eight people are sitting around a rectangular table. If you imagine the table as sort of a Daliesque clock, with Research Assistant Tuyet Hayes, in a bright pink shirt at the Noon position, the rest of the team, clockwise, is: Consultant Annie Leist, Consultant Sina Bahram, Developer Joe Oppegaard, Co-PI Thomas Conway, PI Brett Oppegaard, NPS Accessibility Coordinator Michele Hartley, and Research Assistant Phil Jordan. Everyone has a laptop in front of them and is busily working, except Jordan, who is standing next to Hartley and talking with her about a piece of paper he is holding.

DESCRIBING: A simple digital illustration representing web accessibility attributes. SYNOPSIS: The top of the illustration shows a simplified web browser window as indicated by the typical browser interface with three circular buttons (available in red, yellow, and blue) on the top left corner. Those buttons represent minimize, maximize, and close functions. Below this browser interface, there are three speech balloons, each in a different color and containing different HTML attributes. The first speech balloon, in orange, contains the text role='button', which is used to assign an explicit role to an element. The second speech balloon is green and includes aria-label='...', a way of adding accessible labels to elements. The third speech balloon is in teal and shows tabindex='3', which defines the tab order of the element for keyboard navigation. The positioning of these speech balloons, centered within the browser window framework, underlines their importance in web accessibility.

DESCRIBING: A simple digital illustration representing web accessibility attributes.
SYNOPSIS: The top of the illustration shows a simplified web browser window as indicated by the typical browser interface with three circular buttons (available in red, yellow, and blue) on the top left corner. Those buttons represent minimize, maximize, and close functions. Below this browser interface, there are three speech balloons, each in a different color and containing different HTML attributes. The first speech balloon, in orange, contains the text "role='button'," which is used to assign an explicit role to an element. The second speech balloon is green and includes "aria-label='...'," a way of adding accessible labels to elements. The third speech balloon is in teal and shows "tabindex='3'," which defines the tab order of the element for keyboard navigation. The positioning of these speech balloons, centered within the browser window framework, underlines their importance in web accessibility.

Website & Mobile App Accessibility, Review & Remediation

Web laws and standards have been steadily increasing in sophistication in recent years, requiring deeper and deeper levels of accessibility, for all types of audiences.

The Access Hound team can help you understand the current state of accessibility of your website or mobile app and also help you to make it more accessible to all users. We have been building websites since 1996 and mobile apps since 2008, and we specialize in making or remeditating websites and mobile apps that meet the highest WCAG standards possible for a project. Websites and mobile apps that we support get tested by real people with representative skills on real devices in real situations, ensuring that these interfaces work and do what they are designed to do.

For a status report, the Access Hound team can do a full review of your website or mobile app. We will document any variances from federal law and industry standards as well as provide assistance in reaching and exceeding legal compliance.

After we determine the current status of your site, we have engineers on staff that can make the required updates for your website or train your engineers on how to write more accessible code.

Let's build something great together Learn more

Fractional Accessibility Leadership

Embedding accessibility into the core of your organization's strategy is paramount. Our Fractional Accessibility Leadership service offers you the opportunity to have Dr. Brett Oppegaard, a renowned expert in media accessibility and inclusive design, guide your accessibility initiatives, including creation of your VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) response, per Section 508 and other legal requirements.

Dr. Oppegaard has extensive experience leading accessibility projects, such as the internationally acclaimed UniDescription Project as well as collaborations with prominent national and international institutions, such as the U.S. National Park Service, the American Council of the Blind, the Helen Keller National Center, the Blinded Veterans Association, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, the Canadian Council of the Blind, and many others, bringing unparalleled expertise to your team.

What we offer:

  • Executive-Level Guidance: Integrate accessibility into your organization's vision and operations with strategic oversight.
  • Policy Development: Craft and implement accessibility policies that align with legal standards and best practices.
  • Team Empowerment: Train and mentor your staff to foster an inclusive culture and build internal accessibility competencies.
  • Project Oversight: Ensure that your products and services meet accessibility standards through expert review and guidance.
  • VPAT Production: One of the key steps in creating accessible media is to test your systems and analyze their effectiveness in terms of operability and other legal and ethical standards using a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) production process. We can help in all steps of that VPAT production process.
  • Stakeholder Engagement: Facilitate collaboration between your organization and the Access Hound community to ensure authentic and effective accessibility solutions.

    • Engaging Dr. Oppegaard as a fractional leader provides your organization with the benefits of world-class accessibility insights without the commitment of a full-time executive role. This flexible arrangement is ideal for organizations seeking to elevate their accessibility practices strategically and sustainably.

    Let's work together Learn more
    Dr. Brett Oppegaard has been invited to share his research results around the world, including at peer-reviewed venues throughout the United States as well as in formal presentations in Canada, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Kenya, Spain, and Norway.

    Dr. Brett Oppegaard has been invited to share his research results around the world, including at peer-reviewed venues throughout the United States as well as in formal presentations in Canada, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Kenya, Spain, and Norway.

    Inclusive Media Content

    Media organizations that want to grow their audiences know that inclusive media is better media, making the content more popular, more shareable, and more useful. Whether you are sharing investigative journalism or cooking tips, if your audience members can't see or hear your content, it might as well not exist for them. The Access Hound team dissolves those artificial and unnecessary barriers between you and your audiences, allowing everyone to get the information and stories you want to share, growing your audiences in size, engagement, and overall satisfaction.

    Let's make your stories more accessible Learn more
    DESCRIBING: A horizontal color photograph. DESCRIPTION: The Silicon Valley and San Francisco chapters of the American Council of the Blind participated in field tests of the UniD apps in April 2018 at Muir Woods National Monument. The seven people shown here – including Park Ranger Michael Faw, in the middle of the image – are either looking at, or listening to, their mobile devices in a setting of enormous redwood trees. These trees are so large, only the base of the trunks can be seen. And one in the background looks as long as an automobile. Ranger Faw is holding a red smartphone and showing it to McGuire, who is leaning in toward the screen and holding a leash attached to a dark-gray poodle. Blind or visually impaired members shown here include Frank Welte, Sally McGuire, Michael Keithley, and Susan Glass. Two people, though, because of the way they are obscured in the image, could not be identified.

    A group of a half-dozen blind and low-vision visitors are gathered at a viewpoint at Muir Woods National Monument in California to hear Audio Description as a part of a research project led by Dr. Brett Oppegaard.

    Why Choose Us?

    Access Hound has a proven track record and an unmatched network in the world of Audio Description.

    We do not guess.
    We research and test.
    You get data-driven insights.
    You make better decisions.

    We have trained more than 1,000 people, including describers in more than 10 countries around the world.

    We are experts in accessibility AND emergingin technologies, including GenAI, mobile media, and location-based services.

    We serve you and your project's needs, whether that is just a great idea or a legacy project needing remediation.

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