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As part of a case study partnership aimed at better serving the needs of visually impaired museum visitors, Vocaleyes and Tate Britain have launched a new descriptive tour for the Collections 2003-1500 display. The new programme uses Acoustiguide digital audio players, which have been specially designed to meet the accessibility needs of listeners of all ages and abilities. Funding was received from the Arts Council of England's New Audiences programme, and Vocaleyes is part of a wider project supported by the RNIB and Resource.

Before producing the new tour of selected artworks, Vocaleyes and Tate Britain received invaluable input from focus groups who reviewed audio players and judged which would be most suited to visually impaired visitors. Acoustiguide was selected, and the Vocaleyes programmes are now available on Acoustiguide Mini players, which are used like a Walkman with a headset. The Mini players offer many accessibility features including: a backlit keypad, well-spaced buttons, and a raised "5" on the telephone-style keypad.

"Working with our clients to increase access has been a priority for Acoustiguide over the past few years," said David Wynne, Acoustiguide's Director of International Sales and Marketing. "In 2001, Acoustiguide won an Interpret Britain Commendation from the Association of Heritage Interpretation for audio tours for visually impaired visitors at Tate Modern. We are delighted to extend our involvement with visually impaired programmes to an even wider audience and join in this project with Vocaleyes and Tate Britain."

The Vocaleyes programme at Tate Britain comprises two, 45-minute long audio tours of paintings selected from the historic and contemporary collections. Highlights include works by John Constable, J.M.W. Turner and John Everett Millais. The audio descriptions provide both details on the visual aspects of each work, as well as background information on the artists.

In the longer term, Tate Britain aims to create a bank of audio descriptions that can be changed according to the hanging arrangement of the gallery. The current tour is part of a wider project by Vocaleyes and RNIB to create audio descriptions for museums, galleries and heritage venues with an overall aim to develop new audiences.