Audio and Video

Multimedia content on your website can help deliver information more efficiently and effectively than simple text or images. As with the other elements of your site, you need to ensure all users are able to receive the information contained within the audio and video elements used on your site. Generally, pre-recorded content will have much stricter guidelines on what you need to provide than live content, though you should try and implement the recommendations here wherever possible.

Content

The recommendations here generally match those of the text content on your site. If you are going to use jargon, idioms, or acronyms, provide descriptions or definitions to aid those who may be unfamiliar with those terms. Speak slowly and clearly so that you can more easily be understood. Avoid having loud background music or noises that could conflict with your dialogue.

If your dialogue describes something shown visibly, describe that visual element for those that wouldn't be able to see it. If you are demonstrating a task, describe the objects you are interacting with, the actions you are taking, and how one could know when a task is complete. If you are referencing a presentation slide, a part of a website, or some other visual component, describe the relevant features of that item. Saying "As we can see on this slide, business is going well!" doesn't help users know what was on the slide. Instead of this, one could say "This slide shows a line graph of annual sales from the last 20 years. Our annual sales have grown steadily across this time period, so business is going well!". Even you reading those two sentences likely have a better sense of what the speaker is talking about once the graph was described.

Captions/Subtitles

Captions provide visual text alternatives to audio elements of a video. Captions should be no longer than about 40 characters per line. A caption should span no more than two lines, breaking at a natural pause or between phrases in a sentence. Captioned text should appear as close to when the text is spoken as possible. A caption should stay on screen for somewhere between 1.5 and 6 seconds, giving the reader as much time to read it as possible. You do not need to include filler words in dialogue such as "um", "uh", "like", or other similar phrases, but doing so could help humanize the speaker and provide some additional context for the user. If your video contains dialogue from multiple people, include the speaker's name at the start of the caption whenever the speaker changes. You can denote background music, sound effects, or changes in dialogue by describing the effect in square brackets. Examples of this can include [dog barking], [joyful background music], [Queen singing "Don't Stop Me Now"], though you would need to include lyric captions in addition to introducing the song on that last example.

Under WCAG, captions simply need to communicate the information necessary to understand the content of a piece of media. That leads a lot of room for interpretation on exactly how best to meet that requirement. As such, I have based the instructions here on the Described and Captioned Media Program's Captioning Key.

Automated Captions Are Not Sufficient

Zoom, Teams, YouTube and many other video platforms provide automated captioning services. As these captions likely contain several errors, they are insufficient for meeting the caption requirements for video. It is likely a good idea to enable captions with a recorded Zoom or Teams meeting just so that you have the caption file as a starting point. Similarly, you can upload a video to YouTube and then download the caption file generated there. The caption file is a text file, often in a Video Text Tracks (VTT) format, will contain each line of dialogue as well as the starting and ending timecodes where that dialogue is spoken. In correcting automated captions, you will need to adjust the timings to match the speaker, the length and duration of the captions, and the actual text of the caption.

TTU Captioning Services

TTU Online Accessibility Services offers captioning assistance to faculty and staff at TTU. To request captioning services, complete the Captioning Request Form.

Transcripts

Transcripts function in a way similar to captions, as they provide text version of the speech component of a video. However, transcripts should also contain notes about the visual components of a video. Transcripts can be hosted on their own webpage, and a link to these should appear near their related multimedia content. To create a transcript, you can take the text of your caption file (without its formatting and timecodes) and format that document as you would any other website. Next, you'll need to add in any missing information from the audio or video of your content. This could include visual actions taken as part of a demonstration or descriptions of slides in a presentation. Descriptive transcripts are the only way that users who are deaf and blind can gain information from videos on your site.

Descriptive Audio

If a video on your site contains information that does not appear in the audio, you need to provide a version of the video that utilizes a descriptive audio track describing the visual elements of the video. As an example, you could have a video on your site that shows photos of your students, faculty, staff, programs, resources, and spaces, with titles here and there pointing out key facts about your program. If none of this information is communicated in the audio of the video, you would need another version of the video that describes this information in its audio. The audio descriptions should communicate the actions, scenes, and on-screen text depicted in the video. This additional context can be placed in between gaps of dialogue as possible.

Sign Language

Consider including sign language interpretations in your videos. This likely would come with a cost of hiring interpreters, but it would enable those fluent in sign language to learn from your content in ways that captions may be insufficient. In planning for your video, be sure to include blank space where the interpreter can be present in your video without interfering with the rest of your content.