AD reception research, or collection of feedback from the blind and partially sighted
as the target audience of audio described films, seems to be one of the best sources of
information to be applied when creating both AD standards and audio descriptions
proper. This paper presents experiences gained by the authors when conducting two
reception studies. The first one involved a questionnaire distributed to 18 viewers with
vision dysfunctions immediately after two screenings of audio described films. The other
one is a larger-scale work-in-progress, whose results will be applied in the development
of Polish AD standards reflecting the preferences of the blind and visually impaired
viewers in Poland, where the participants are being interviewed and presented with
AD samples. The authors discuss various methodological issues, including problems
with obtaining a sufficient number of participants, reflecting feedback from visuallyimpaired
AD consultants in the surveys and discovering user preferences. It is suggested
that responses concerning objectivity or subjectivity of descriptions should be elicited
indirectly (implicitly) rather than directly (explicitly) and that research results are more
meaningful if interviews involve comprehension questions and AD samples.
