Every day it is more notable that video is the king of content, social networks, search results, etc. Whether it’s about work-related content or any other information, executives, staff, and others would rather watch videos than read text. Tutorials, explanations, demonstrations, and almost any topic can be found in video format. One drawback is that video is not an accessible medium like text. 

On a visual and auditory level, it can be an accessibility barrier, so something will have to be done to ensure that the videos reach a full audience, right?

Here’s an explanation of the importance of accessible videos and how to make your video content accessible to everyone!

Why Everyone Loves Accessible Videos 

Not focusing on digital accessibility means leaving out 10-15% of the population, and their inclusion, equal opportunity, and reach. Making videos accessible is using accessibility measures, such as subtitles, captions, and transcription, benefits a much larger group. Indeed, to reach an audience with hearing or a visual impairment, we need to create comprehensible and useful content for them.

However, not everyone using captioned videos has a hearing disability. In fact, a survey indicates that the majority of people who use captions in videos are not deaf since there are places, such as quiet places like the library, or noisy places like a bar, where they can watch videos with the audio off. 

That is why the majority prefers videos with a text alternative, which means making accessible videos is no longer an option now but a prerequisite to making your multimedia content reach and engage more users.

Content that is accessible to all is the most usable for everyone. Research shows that accessible videos attract users and boost their engagement, increasing their time on a website. 

On social media, videos are shared twelve times more than images and texts, which is why more and more businesses are incorporating a video strategy into their hiring and recruiting. In addition, businesses increasingly post videos on their websites to better show their users the products and services they offer and increase the time the visitors spend on their websites.

Work-related videos aimed at staff should meet accessibility standards and enable the staff to use videos with audio off in open workspaces. 

Google can also search through captions, not through a video, and therefore positions closed-captioned videos on higher ranks. This is probably the most important point to understand the importance of accessible videos.

Also, audio description for the blind and visually impaired community is being incorporated more and more into videos.

 When making your videos accessible, you’re working on the inclusion of the disabled and expanding your reach, as well as improving your organic search engine rankings.

Standards and Regulations

In the past, there have been many cases where major companies faced the consequences of not providing closed captioning on their videos. Therefore, it is ideal to familiarize oneself with the relevant standards and regulations. 

Here’s a brief overview:

• Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA): This act that aims to make modern communication accessible to persons with disabilities requires television programs to be 100% captioned (with some exceptions).
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): It requires captions, and video descriptions at the minimum level (Level A) and medium level (Level AA), respectively. These standards align with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and are the most widely accepted standards, although voluntary.

How to Make a Video Accessible?

Subtitles

The most basic measure we can take is to add subtitles to the video; therefore, the WCAG has several criteria in this regard:

• 1.2.2 Subtitles for recorded content (in English)
• 1.2.3 Video with audio description or alternative medium (in English)
• 1.2.4 Closed captioning for live content (in English)

The subtitles will make it easier to follow the content of the video. In addition to people with deafness or hearing loss, we also benefit people who watch the video in a very noisy environment (or who do not have headphones handy at the time), people who are not native speakers of that language, people with cognitive diversity, etc.

The transcription is the compilation of all the sound content with the identification of the speakers (if applicable) and the subtitle file is the same but with temporary information on when each phrase should be shown on the screen.

Audio Descriptions

Defined as a spoken narration describing the visual content which is added into the original video sound using pauses between dialogue and sound effects to express the visual events on the screen. For example, when a scene changes to another room or another person enters the scene without talking, the viewer is made aware through the narration.

Captions

It is the text description for a video’s audio part which people with hearing disabilities cannot understand. However, you cannot just use automatically generated captions directly from the “video manager” feature of YouTube. They need to be edited manually to provide accurate captions before publication.

Text Transcripts

Transcripts are the text version of the video content and the audio description if any. It must reproduce with text all the information conveyed by the video (dialogues, voiceover, messages displayed on the screen, etc.). It is used as a complete text alternative to the video.

Transcripts are vital for users who are deaf-blind and the only option to obtain the information when for any reason, any user cannot access the video playback. Having the option of transcription, we can overcome these two obstacles simply.

Deaf-blind users use them to have all the information by accessing the document through a device with Braille output, which will allow them to read the entire content, otherwise, they would not be able to read or hear the information and it is their only option to be able to get it.

The transcript must be provided via an accessible link, and the content can be displayed on the same page, for example, under the video, or on a new page. It can also be shown as a link to the transcript just before or after the audio and its end must be indicated with the text “End of the transcript” so that the user knows when to return to the point where they were.

Make the Video is Accessible from the Start

Take care of the following points while making a video to fully adhere to accessibility guidelines:

Sign language

For deaf people, who use sign language, (ASL) although obviously, they can read the subtitles of a video. However, the emotional nuances and intonations are lost in closed captions, which does not happen through sign language. In videos, it is less common to include this option, but meeting this requirement is equivalent to an accessibility level AAA in WCAG 2.0.

Use Able Player, a fully accessible HTML5 media player, for adding sign language and subtitles for the deaf, translation, audio description, and variable playback speed. It also has full-text search, interactive transcriptions, and synchronized sign language.

Good Caller Visibility

Ensure caller visibility through good lighting so that people with hearing disabilities can access language using lip reading.

Colors and Contrasts

Easily readable text size and a suitable background without compromising the subtitles’ visibility are also important points to consider.

No Flashing Screens

Flashing or flickering content is dangerous for viewers with photo-sensitive epilepsy and can trigger seizures. Remember the Pokemon crash incident in Japan: a flashing visual effect in one of its episodes triggered epileptic seizures in over 12,000 people.

No Autoplay

Different groups of people with disabilities cannot access video players that are defaulted to playing a video automatically while the page is loading.

Other Alternatives

You can also choose to leave all the work to YouTube. It is capable of generating pretty good automatic transcripts. The main problem that YouTube or other tools have is that, at the moment, they do not add punctuation marks to the transcript and therefore require more proofreading work.

An Accessible Video Player

Finally, select your player format keeping accessibility needs in mind. Use a fully accessible media player, such as Able Player, Acorn Media Player, JW Player, etc., to embed your video instead of embedding it directly from YouTube or the WordPress player.

Ad Player is great because at the accessibility level, it is very well done. The subtitles are displayed below the video, so no information is obscured. You can also show all the text of the subtitles as a transcript, making each sentence a link to the moment in the video in which it is spoken.

Conclusion!

We hope the information we shared has provided useful insights into making accessible videos. Now all you have to do is to get to work to make your videos accessible.

Conceptually it is easy to generate a transcript but getting to work is something else; it is a more or less slow task, and it is not so simple. Going from transcription to subtitles is another matter; setting the timestamps can be even more tedious.

Fortunately, some tools will greatly simplify these two tasks. Here’s a summary of the steps:

• Extract audio from the video
• Send that audio to Word (the online version)
  • transcribe option
  • Save in text format
• Review and correct the result
• In YouTube Studio upload the text file
  • go to subtitles
  • Upload file (select without times)
• Review subtitle timing

If it sounds challenging, leave all the work to YouTube, but do not forget to proofread it before publishing.

Inclusivity is the way!

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