Individuals with blindness or low-vision (BLV) rely on audio to help them understand and navigate what is happening around them in their everyday day lives. Today we have technology that allows a greater independence for BLV individuals, like audible pedestrian crossing signals that indicate when it is safe to cross busy intersections, or screen readers that allow for reading on computer screens.
But, despite these advancements of technology, barriers still exist for many, necessitating a continued need for improvement with access, especially with digital media. More than a billion people worldwide live with some type of disability and face obstacles to participating in society without accessible digital content.
One such audio description tool is YouDescribe, which is helping to make YouTube videos on the world’s largest online video sharing platform more accessible for BLV users. YouDescribe is a free program that was created by Dr. Joshua Miele, a scientist and researcher at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute.
YouDescribe was started in 2013 as a crowdsourcing project. Sighted volunteers were trained to create audio descriptions by recording narration for YouTube videos to help individuals with blindness or low vision to understand what was happening in the videos.
Grant funding from the Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) was instrumental in allowing Dr. Miele to develop the YouDescribe tool as a project with the Video Description Research and Development Center at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute. Dr. Meile is also blind.
Continuing the Work of YouDescribe
The current team that is continuing the work of the YouDescribe project, led by Dr. Ilmi Yoon, a teaching professor and director of the computing programs at Northestern University’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences in Silicon Valley, takes pride in their work and what it means for the disability community. Dr. Yoon became involved in the YouDescribe project 10 years ago when she was inspired by Dr. Meile’s presentation in a seminar at San Francisco University.
Dr. Yoon and her team’s work have also been featured by Northeastern University’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences, which highlights how YouDescribe is using AI to expand access to online videos for blind and low-vision users.
Dr. Yoon’s team is made up of graduate students and researchers who are working to help improve and expand the YouDescribe platform. Zhenzhen Qin is one the graduate students involved and joined the project more than a year ago after hearing a talk given by Dr. Yoon. Qin says she enjoys “working on a platform that already serves a real and active community” and that the work is meaningful because it “directly improves the experience of over 3,000 users.”
Fellow researcher and recent graduate, Lana Do, became involved with the YouDescribe project in 2025 as part of a capstone research course.
Do has interests in assistive technology, which aligned with the YouDescribe, a project that stood out to Do “as a uniquely impactful effort.” Furthermore, Do says that speaking with “users who have benefited from YouDescribe, and knowing my contributions are part of what they’re using, is the kind of motivation that’s hard to find in purely technical work.”
Who Uses YouDescribe?
YouDescribe is built for the disability community in mind. It is used in a variety of places, such as in universities where faculty and staff can create educational materials for students with blindness.
Companies and employers can use it to provide training resources for employees. Or everyday video creators can use it to make their engaging videos more accessible on YouTube. The tool works best with Chrome and Firefox browsers.
Some of the features of the YouDescribe tool include:
• Video title wish list for open voting
• Rating system for users to evaluate the quality of audio descriptions
• Options to select suggested improvements form a list
• Visual timeline that shows where description clips have been added
If you’re curious what this looks like, here are some examples of audio described videos available for viewing on the YouDescribe website:
One of the positive aspects of the YouDescribe project is that it is a collaborative effort and anyone can help to make audio descriptions better. Viewers of the videos on the YouDescribe website have the option to rate the description that is provided in the video and offer any feedback for improvements.
Grant Funding for Continued Success
A recent grant from Ability Central is helping Dr. Yoon and her team to improve and expand on the YouDescribe project. Dr. Yoon expresses appreciation for this grant, stating, “Ability Central’s support has been instrumental in helping us move the needle and build the foundation toward our long-term vision.”
Do notes that accessibility “shouldn’t come with a paywall” and that grants like Ability Central’s, are what let the project’s team “keep the platform running and freely available, while also giving us the room to keep improving it.”
A Goal for the Future
AI is revolutionizing so many facets of our society and in beneficial ways. It is especially helping research teams to realize potentials not seen before with their projects and likewise benefit YouDescribe too. When Yoon first joined the YouDescribe project, audio descriptions were written by humans, which was a slow and time-consuming process. But AI systems that can analyze images and video and generate descriptions, or vision-language models, have helped to automate and speed up the process for eager users.
Do helped to develop a new feature that makes the experience of watching the videos more interactive for the viewer. Rather than include each visual element that is on the screen, the assistance of AI is working to make the audio descriptions more concise. The viewer has the ability to pause the video at any time to ask questions if they want more details when needed and the AI generates the additional details.
Dr. Yoon and her team aim to “refine what we have developed, and build the critical mass needed to realize our shared vision” and making providing an “impactful platform for the disability community.” Qin is excited about the “impact of the AI features we’ve recently integrated into the platform,” that will help generate the initial audio descriptions and allow the volunteers to focus more on reviewing and refining what is there rather than working from scratch.
While YouDescribe is an AI-driven tool that still relies on humans, there is always room for improvement. Do hopes for “better AI-generated drafts, powered by the latest vision-language models” that will make editing faster and easier for the volunteer audio describers. Additionally, Do hopes that as the project continues to expand, the individual BLV collaborators will get to shape the assistive technology and change the landscape across multiple projects.
For now, the appreciation of receiving the grant from Ability Central to continue this meaningful work, is giving Dr. Yoon and her team optimism for the future, especially as research and funding has been difficult in the past few years. But, Dr. Yoon and team aren’t giving up, and they are eager to give the BLV community the accessibility it needs.
As a final thought, Dr. Yoon wishes “to see YouDescribe continue to grow into a powerful and widely used platform for both blind and low-vision users and audio describers.”
Resources to Learn More
East Carolina University offers a Social Media Accessibility guide with key tips and best practices for making your social media content accessible.
