For the third consecutive year, the Madrid City Council, through the "Dirección General de Accesibilidad del Área de Obras y Equipamientos", together with the "Universidad Carlos III de Madrid", has made it possible for all people, especially those with visual and intellectual disabilities, to enjoy the traditional Christmas lights through the mobile application "Navidad Accesible Madrid".
The application allows users to follow a guided route through the Christmas lights based on a system of audio descriptions, i.e. audios that narrate to people what is being shown in front of them. This application works when the user activates their phone's location system near the lights included in the application. At that moment, the geolocation system is activated, and the audio description is played, providing information about the scenes represented by the lighting, the colours, the sensations they transmit and additional information about their creation and designers. As in previous years, there are three formats for the audio descriptions. Two of them are designed for adults, with synthetic voice and real voice, and the third is an option for children, with children's narrators and clear and simple language adapted to them.
"Navidad Accesible Madrid" is free and available on Android and iOS. It can also be found by searching for 'Navidad Accesible' in any of the app shops.
This system has been developed by professors and researchers from the Human Language and Accessibility Technologies Group (HULAT), belonging to the Department of Computer Science at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, whose work focuses on carrying out R+D+i projects related to natural language processing technologies, information retrieval and extraction in various domains, response search systems, usability and accessibility in user interfaces.