Managing Development of Media Alternatives and Meeting Standards
For descriptions of captions, transcripts, audio description, sign language and other introductory information, please see the previous page: Making Video and Audio Accessible - Introduction.
Note: If you don’t want to get wrapped up in the standards yet, you can jump down to the short section to figure out what my video or audio needs.
WCAG Media Standards
WCAG
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is introduced in the WCAG Overview.
WCAG includes requirements for video and audio ("media"), at Level A, AA, and AAA. Most media is required by governing policies to meet Level AA — which includes both A and AA listed in the tables below.
Accessibility requirements for video and audio are different based on if they are:
- pre-recorded or live
- video with audio, video without audio (video only), or audio only
Pre-Recorded
Transcript (including auditory and visual content) | Captions | Audio Description (if visual content not in audio) | Sign Language | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Video with Audio | AAA 1.2.8 | A 1.2.2 | A 1.2.3 (audio description or transcript) AA 1.2.5 AAA 1.2.7 |
AAA 1.2.6 |
Audio only | A 1.2.1 AAA 1.2.8 |
A 1.2.2 | AAA 1.2.6 | |
Video only | A 1.2.1 (transcript or audio description) AAA 1.2.8 |
A 1.2.3 (audio description or transcript) AA 1.2.5 |
Live
Transcript | Captions | Audio Description | Sign Language | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Video with Audio | AA 1.2.4 | |||
Audio only | AAA 1.2.9 | AA 1.2.4 | ||
Video only |
Learn More About Standards
To learn more about WCAG standards for media, see Understanding Guideline 1.2: Time-based Media .
What Does My Video/Audio Need?
This section describes the optimum for pre-recorded media to meet users' needs.
Providing a Descriptive Transcript for Your Videos
Descriptive transcripts are not required to meet WCAG Level AA. However, they:
- meet a wide range of accessibility needs, and are needed in order for videos to be accessible to people who are "Deaf-blind"
- provide additional benefits for users without disabilities, and for your organization (for example, SEO)
- are easy and inexpensive to develop using captions and audio description that you already have to meet Level AA
Deciding How to Meet User Needs
The wording below helps you think about what users need in order to understand the information that you are presenting in the video or audio, including users who cannot hear it or see it. We've included "who are Deaf" and "who are blind" to help you understand what to provide. However, keep in mind that many people who can see and hear will also benefit from these, as described in Additional Benefits.
What does my video need to be accessible?
- Is there speech or other audio that is needed to understand the content?
- If yes,
- [_] Captions that provide the information to people who are Deaf or hard of hearing and want to watch the video. (A 1.2.2)
- [_] Transcript of audio information that provides the information to people who don't want to watch the video. (AAA 1.2.8)
(This transcript is the same text from the captions file, in a different format.)
- If no, inform users.
- If yes,
- Is there visual information that is needed to understand the content?
- If yes,
- [_] Audio description that provides the information to people who are blind and want to listen to the video. (AA 1.2.5)
- [_] Descriptive transcript that provides the information to people who are blind and Deaf ("Deaf-blind"). (AAA 1.2.8)
(If you have a descriptive transcript, you do not need an additional transcript of only audio information from the previous question.)
- If no, inform users.
- If yes,
What does my audio-only (e.g., podcast) need to be accessible?
- [_] Captions that provide the information to people who are hard of hearing and want to listen the audio. (A 1.2.2)
- [_] Transcript of audio information that provides the information to people who blind and Deaf ("Deaf-blind"), and people who don't want to listen to the audio. (AAA 1.2.8)
(This transcript is the same text from the captions file, in a different format.)
Informing Users When None Needed
If your media does not need captions (because there is no substantive audio content) or does not need audio description (because there is no substantive visual content), it's good to let users know that. Otherwise, they might think that you accidentally forgot to provide it. For example:
- Captions not needed: The only sound with this video is background music. There is no speaking.
- Audio description not needed: This video does not include audio description because the visuals only support what is spoken; the visuals do not provide additional information.
Managing Development of Media Alternatives
This section provides guidance to help you decide what to develop in-house and what to outsource.
The Basics
What you need for most videos is:
- Text version of the audio (including speech and non-speech) information that users need to understand the content.
- Text with time codes in a file format for closed captions. (This is also be used for interactive transcripts.)
- The same text can be used for the descriptive transcript.
- Description of the visual information that users need to understand the content.
- An audio version for audio description within the video. (@@ or file for screen readers)
- A text version for media players that support it and for the descriptive transcript.
Whether you develop captions, transcripts, and audio description in-house or outsource them depends on several factors, including: ...
The sections below provide additional information to help you decide how to get your captions, transcripts, and audio description developed.
Captions Considerations
Live captions are usually done by professional Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) providers. The rest of this section addresses captions for pre-recorded media.
Creating captions requires typing up audio ("transcribing") and formatting it in a file with timestamps. It is surprisingly difficult to transcribe an audio file, and takes quite a bit of time for people who don't have the software and skill for it. The file formast for captions are simple, yet it's tedious to add timestamps, especially without software or service for developing caption files. Good captioning requires knowledge of which non-speech audio information should be included in the captions.
Even correcting an automatice caption files takes quite a bit of time for people who don't do it regularly.
However, for people who have the software, skills, and experience in developing captions, they are much easier and faster to develop.
For these reasons, many organizations choose to outsource their captions.
More information is in Creating Captions.
Audio Description Considerations
When accessibility is considered before videos are produced, it significantly cuts down on cost and effort to develop audio description.
For some videos, description of the visual information can be seamlessly integrated into the main video without any additional cost. For example, instead of the speaker saying:
As you can see on this chart, sales increased significantly from the first quarter to the second quarter.
The speaker can say:
This chart shows that sales increased from 1 million in the first quarter to 1.3 million in the second quarter.
If you have an existing video and you want to add audio description, you'll need:
- ... skills to write it, speak it, integrate it in new audio and video files...
More information is in Creating Audio Description of Visual Information.
Transcript Considerations
Transcripts are easy to develop once you have captions for the main video and of the audio description. In-house staff who know how to create basic web content can develop the descriptive transcript.
More information is in Creating Transcripts.
Media Player Considerations
[A little here just to let managers know that a decision will have to be made which player to use and some developer teim & skills needed to make it all work. How for developers would be in a potential future Implementing Media Tutorial.]
Content Considerations
Make sure accessibility is considered when storyboarding and producing your vidoes and audio.
More information is in Creating Video and Audtion Content.
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