Audio description (AD) has become a top issue in audiovisual translation studies in recent years. More and more research is being carried out from different approaches: linguistics, didactics, narratology, translation, etc. However, little research has been carried out with its most central group of users: the blind and the visually impaired.
If accessibility means making a specific product accessible in similar conditions for all, then, one of the objectives of film AD would be to make films understandable in a similar way for all. Taking that into account, I have designed a reception study to check whether and/or to what extent blind and visually impaired users understand an audio described film in a way that is similar to the manner in which sighted users appreciate the original film.
In this paper I will present the methodological design of that reception study, which is partly based on psychology studies and includes elements such as the consensus of judges, interviews or questionnaires and technologies such as eye-tracking.

Cristóbal CABEZA I CÁCERES holds a BA in Translation Studies and is currently working on his PhD. He lectures in subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing and audio description in the MA in Audiovisual Translation at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain). He also teaches subtitling in the on-line AVT Postgraduate at the same university. Apart from teaching he works as a professional audiovisual translator and has participated in the Spanish audio description of films such as Woody Allen’s Match Point and Isabel Coixet’s Elegy. Since 2007 he has been audio describing operas in Catalan at Barcelona’s Liceu Theatre.