Creating accessible video content ensures everyone—including people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or visually impaired—can fully engage with your materials.
What Are Captions?
Captions are text displayed on a video that represent spoken dialogue and other meaningful audio (e.g., music, sound effects).
Types of Captions:
Closed Captions (CC): Viewers can toggle them on/off.
Open Captions: Always visible and cannot be turned off.
Live Captions: Automatically generated during live broadcasts (e.g., YouTube Live, Zoom).
Captioning Standards (WCAG 2.1):
Must be synchronized, accurate, and complete.
Include speaker identification and sound effects when relevant.
Tools for Captioning:
YouTube Studio (edit auto-generated captions)
Amara
Otter.ai (transcription + caption export)
Descript
Kapwing
Best Practices:
Always review auto-generated captions for errors.
Use punctuation for clarity.
Avoid blocking important visuals with captions.
The video above discusses accessible video creation.
Making audio content accessible helps users who are deaf or hard of hearing, and benefits anyone who prefers reading over listening.
What Is a Transcript?
A transcript is a written version of spoken audio. It includes dialogue, speaker labels, and, if relevant, sound cues (e.g., [laughter], [music]).
Best Practices:
Place transcripts directly below or next to the audio file.
Ensure transcripts are accurate and well-formatted.
Use timestamps if the audio is longer or instructional.
If your audio content describes a visual process (like walking through a diagram), consider offering a visual supplement or written description.
The video above discusses accessible video creation with audio.
Images should never be just decorative—they should support learning and be understandable to users using assistive technologies.
What Is Alt Text?
Alt text is a brief description of an image that a screen reader reads aloud to users who cannot see the image.
When to Use It:
All informative images must include alt text.
Do NOT use alt text for purely decorative images—use null alt (alt="") instead.
How to Write Effective Alt Text:
Be concise (1–2 sentences max).
Focus on the function and message of the image.
Avoid “image of” or “picture of”—screen readers already announce it’s an image.
Examples:
“Image of a chart.”
“Bar chart comparing monthly sales from January to March.”
The video above discusses accessible images and graphics, as well as the use of alternate text such as this.