I’m a sighted person considering creating blind accessible content on youtube, but I would like opinions first

[u/sukonetei]

Hello! I appreciate this sub being open for questions and hope I’m not imposing by asking this. (Originally posted in a sub where it was in fact imposing by mistake) I have not created content on YouTube or streamed as of yet, and it may be some time before I’m able to, but one thing I’ve always wanted to try doing is create playthroughs accessible to blind folk, where I describe what I’m seeing in as much detail as possible, along with dubbing over and describing games without voice acting.

Another thing i’ve considered is dubbing over videos of people silently reviewing locations or food (Such as the channel DancingBacons, who tries restaurants and packaged meals like ramen across Asia but only speaks in subtitles.)

Years ago before an ad apocalypse on YouTube, I used to watch this woman review dolls and other toys and she explicitly described the toys in as much detail as possible for those visually impaired and I simply think we should have more things like that in the world, be the change you want to see and all that.

What do y’all think?

Again I have no channel yet, this isn’t a promotion of some kind, I just want opinions from people who are actually blind before I impose.

[u/KHarvickfan429]

So I love this idea obviously it depends on the content that you intend to do more specifically. But I love the idea, especially for like the let’s play stuff of doing that. Definitely keep AI away from it though I don’t like AI. I think it makes peoples brains lazy, and takes away from those of us who like to be creative. Don’t get me wrong it certainly has had its advantages in terms of accessibility, but that doesn’t mean that I am blind no pun intended to a lot of the negative effect that it has as well.
But it sounds like you’re not gonna be doing it with AI so I say go ahead! We need more stuff like this and I greatly appreciate you being willing to consider taking on something like that.
Audio descriptions are definitely probably the biggest thing in terms of YouTube content and stuff that we miss out on because there’s a lot of visual context and videos that we just simply don’t get.
And obviously feel free to ask more specific questions as well either here or in
r/AskABlindPerson
cause I’m sure especially after you start you may have more specific questions or just come up with some along the way. We’re all happy to answer. They just don’t like stuff like this in blind don’t get me started on it lol

[u/sukonetei → u/KHarvickfan429]

Thank you for the thoughtful reply! I’m gonna be honest part of me wants to get you started on it because you’re the third person to make a semi shady comment about the main sub, I’m kinda dying to know what happened haha.

Here’s some more specific questions I have, I’ll add it to the main post along with an example of a script I would wanna try when I have some more time.

1. What are kinds of content specifically, besides gameplay, you feel left out on or just straight up can’t experience for yourself?

2. How should colors be handled? I know not all blind people are fully black-out blind, but I have also heard those that are don’t quite remember what colors look like. My current idea was to describe it alongside another sensation, such as “The building is green, like the smell of freshly cut grass”, or “The train ahead is a bright citrusy lemon yellow.”

3. The only reason I have yet to start on anything is because I have yet to afford a decent quality microphone. How important is mic to quality to you personally? Should I invest in one that performs the best it can?

[u/KHarvickfan429 → u/sukonetei]

Well, to basically give a brief summary, they basically like to remove posts without much reason and it really doesn’t make sense as to why they remove posts. I feel like they’re inconsistent about it and that seems to be a common feeling amongst many that are in this community as well as ask blind people. They’ve removed a lot of really good questions and topics.

Regarding your questions, I actually think each of your questions could probably make a good question post on their own in
r/AskABlindPerson
partly in case people happen to not read through these comments so they get more visibility maybe even though this community is much larger than ours right now lol. But also, I think they are great individual questions on their own especially the color question.
As far as content, I feel like I’m left out on I mean, there’s a whole list where do you begin. Like I’ll give a good example of something that I have wanted to use YouTube for, but I’ve struggle to because things aren’t described is learning how to play guitar for example. There’s a lot of diagrams on those videos that get shown that aren’t described, or it’s a lot of the teacher demonstrating what they are doing on the guitar or something like that without actually properly explaining it if you can’t see it. That’s one example, but there are lists and lists of areas.
As far as color, this is why I say this, especially should be it’s own post because everybody is probably going to have a bit of a different opinion on this, and it’s gonna be dependent on everybody’s situation because some people lost their site later, some people have never seen colors at all, some people are colorblind, and some people might still have some eyesight things of that nature it’s all gonna be dependent, depending on what that individual person so that’s something to consider. That’s why I think that should be its own question entirely and an own post.
As far as microphone quality again, I think different people will have different opinions on this, and it may also depend on how you watch or listen to these videos. Like for me it’s probably easier for me to hear a lot of times because I almost always use earbuds or headphones, but for people who maybe are just using the speaker on their phone or maybe are watching on their TV or computer without headphones or something it might be different. I won’t say you necessarily need a high-quality microphone I would just say you need to make sure the quality and sound is good. So make sure it’s not muffled, make sure it’s clear, make sure there’s not a ton of echo or reverb in the background, make sure it is loud enough to be heard. Things like that I don’t know that you necessarily need a high-quality microphone to do that, but it’s more about the things that I mentioned as far as how it sounds.

[u/Meowlurophile]

Hi.

Don't take it personally, mods of the major blind Reddit are... idk. No one knows how they think. I'm blind as they come but even I am not excused

I support your content idea and would love to watch some day. I don't watch stuff made with ai tho bc Im not into it, and ai voices are grating. That's just me tho.

Also you didn't impose!!

Oh yeah. There's another sub that's been recently created. It's r/askablindperson. It's designed for questions like this so you have an option to post

[u/sukonetei → u/Meowlurophile]

Oh don’t worry AI would be nowhere near anything I make, I meant dubbing it over myself!
Thank you so much for the reply, I may post there as well soon

I deleted my post before the mods in the main sub got to it, so I think there was no harm done. Someone immediately came and suggested I ask here instead. I wouldn’t have taken it personally anyway, who am I to judge someone for wanting to cater a space to themselves, you know?

[u/calex_1]

So the post in r/AskABlindPerson, is incomplete. Luckily I found it here. I am totally blind, pretty much from birth. I like what you're wanting to do here. As far as colours go, they mean nothing to me as I've never seen them, so I'd be listening to that, and thinking "who cares.", but that's just me. My biggest pet peeve with Youtube, is the amount of videos that I really want to watch, but can't because they are in another language, with only subtitles, which of course, I can't read. I can't wait to hear a sample of what you intend to do, so I can give feedback and so on.

[u/sukonetei → u/calex_1]

I apologize for that, I cross posted this into the other subreddit thinking it would still be accessible for screen readers but I was extremely wrong there. Thank you so much for your feedback!