Audio storytelling is an avenue into other worlds. So when the Guardian was approached to take part in an experimental project to make journalism more accessible to low-vision and blind users, it felt like an opportunity we couldn’t turn down. Audio has always been about making stories more accessible, and this was an opportunity to push that even further.
The result is a storytelling website called Auditorial, created to showcase the possibilities of accessible stories for blind and low-vision audiences. The story is our own, paired with Google technology and the invaluable accessibility user-testing and expert advice provided by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) – an example of what can be done when inclusive design and thinking are at the forefront from the start.
The website, which was created over a seven-month period, was born out of an episode of our Science Weekly podcast from 2018. And the story, similar to the original podcast, is based on Bernie Krause, one of the founders of a field known as soundscape ecology. Over 15 or so minutes, we use his story to explore the devastating effects of the climate crisis and other human-induced environmental destruction on the [...]