Audio Description and Automatic User Identification: a Promising Marriage in Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT)

Abstract

The DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) switchover will enable the development of a television infrastructure with more resources and technological capabilities. In fact, DTT can encompass a variety of features and services where users can take on an interactive and participatory role. Nevertheless, the interactive services reveal interaction problems for visually impaired users (VIU). For this reason, it is important to apply accessibility, usability and design-oriented principles to the development of accessible interactive television systems. The present paper introduces a research project related to universal design issues on the Interactive Television scope, having as main objective the development of an audio description service offered by DTT that comprises an automatic identification system and an easy and simple interaction. Therefore, it will be prototyped an interactive and enhanced audio description system that includes new features and functionalities, is based on universal design principles and is supported by a users' identification system that is sustained through RFID tags and readers.