How ZHAW Teaches Audio Description with Frazier

Hello Martin, please introduce yourself briefly.

I have been a lecturer at the Department of Applied Linguistics at ZHAW for 15 years. For the past ten years, I have been working on Accessible Communication, and for the past two years, I have been leading the Learning and Research Area for Accessible Communication here at ZHAW.

I first encountered Video To Voice in 2017 at the 1st Conference on Accessible Communication. Christian gave a presentation there on “Text-To-Speech Audio Description: Potentials of Web-Based Applications Towards More Accessibility” and introduced the first version of Frazier.

Tell us a bit about audio description at ZHAW. What does it look like in your studies?

Our degree program was a classic translator program, which we have modernized again and again in recent years. For example, the specialization in Language Engineering will be added in the next iteration.

In the Bachelor’s degree in Multilingual Communication, audio description is offered as a semester course, and in the Master’s degree in Multilingual Communication Management, we also have courses in which we intensively deal with audio description and other accessibility methods. There, we and the students regularly work together with practical partners and representatives of the target group.

Before Frazier, you used other tools. How did that work back then?

We worked with classic desktop software. The problem was that we only had five licenses on five permanently installed computers. That meant there were only group projects, and our students always had to be on-site to work on their projects. And unfortunately, for cost reasons, we didn’t have a full version, so we simply couldn’t do certain things.

You also had to invest an insane amount of time in explaining the software. The introduction easily took a double lesson. I stood at the front and showed how to create a project, how to navigate, how to make and play recordings, and so on.

And during the projects, the students constantly came: “That doesn’t work!” or “That doesn’t do anything!”. We were often more busy with technical support than with the actual content teaching. That was quite frustrating.

We were already happy if they could submit something afterward and had delivered the correct files. We could pay much less attention to content.

Warum habt ihr euch dann für Frazier entschieden?

Frazier is simply more stable than the tools we had before. We need much less time for the introduction, and the students can therefore concentrate much more on the content. They have access to their projects at any time and can thus work from home, also collaboratively. You can give them homework and don’t have to give them the same computer.

The courses have not only become easier in many respects, but you also have new possibilities that we simply didn’t have before. The lecturers can listen directly to the students’ work and give immediate feedback. And the large selection of synthetic voices in different languages is also very important, as we have students who also work with French or Italian.

The inhibition threshold to use Frazier is really extremely low for the students. Compared to what was there before, and also compared to other tools I teach in completely different areas. You can get started so quickly, and yet it’s software at a professional level. In addition, the tool is constantly being developed further and is therefore always up-to-date with the latest technology and current developments.

And I also want to mention the support again. My colleague Alexa noted this twice in her notes here. You get an answer incredibly quickly if questions or problems do arise. That’s worth gold!

Was there a particular “aha” moment with Frazier that you would like to share?

Our students are rather reserved people. The less they have to talk, the better for them, haha. And of course, there was always this inhibition threshold when they had to record the audio tracks themselves. Especially when other people were also listening. With the synthetic voices, they now only have to press the button, the text is read aloud, and they can sit quietly next to it themselves. That took a lot of pressure off them.