We published a top tip in last month’s newsletter on how to go about ensuring you have accessible video and audio on your website, so I thought I’d put my thoughts up on the blog as well.
Accessibility isn’t just limited to the text on your website - it applies to all types of content including multimedia. With video and audio becoming more and more common across the web it’s essential that you do as much as possible to open up this content to all website users, and it’s not as complicated as you may think. Below are some tips for catering for three key user groups:
- Blind web users
- The key requirement for blind web users for accessible video is that all visual changes within videos are conveyed through non-visual means. Ideally this would be though an additional voice-over within the video (which can be switched on or off) describing the visual changes. Creating this for all your videos can be very costly and time-consuming, so an alternative is to provide a written transcript for the video, with a comprehensive description of the video. Also, ensure that video and audio don’t automatically play on web pages as the sound can interfere with screen reader speech.
- Mobility-impaired web users
- For most mobility-impaired users, effective keyboard access to content is key to offering accessible video and audio. All audio/video controls need to work with the keyboard as well as the mouse and the tabbing order through these controls should be logical (which usually means left-to-right). Finally, there should be a focus state for each control when tabbed onto – often this is a yellow border around the control so it’s probably best to follow this convention. Do also bear in mind that blind users utilising screen readers are also keyboard-only users so these guidelines also apply to them.
- Deaf web users
- For deaf web users the most important thing when making accessible video and audio is that equivalents are provided for all content that relies on sound. This means offering written transcripts for audio files and subtitles within videos (which can be switched on or off). Ideally, and for optimal accessibility, you’ll also provide sign language for any videos as this is the first language for many hearing impaired people (especially those deaf since birth).
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Jeremy Freeman commented on 30 September 2009 at 4:23 pm
I’d like to highlight accessibility for deaf web users. You quite rightly point out the need to supply transcripts and/or captions for videos and audio. I’m currently doing some research on this with a view to raising awareness and possibly promoting solutions. Over 99% of videos and audio have no transcript at all - incredible when there are over 7 million hard of hearing people in the UK who will find this inaccessible. Plus, this is the clincher, many companies allow no sound to be played on the pcs - therefore rendering the audio and video rather useless.
I’d be interested in hearing your input on what you think is the most effective way in resolving these issues?
Overstream commented on 2 October 2009 at 11:38 pm
Regarding accessibility for deaf/hard-of-hearing people, consider http://www.overstream.net.
Trenton commented on 4 October 2009 at 11:28 am
Hi Jeremy
Unfortunately I don’t have the answer on how to force website owners to create accessible video and audio. This is the million dollar question at the moment within the accessibility sector. The problem of course is to do with the time and expense involved in making video and audio accessible.
Most decent developers now know at least the basics of building accessible web pages and doing so doesn’t really take any longer than building inaccessible web pages. The same of course can’t be said about accessible video and audio, which requires a significant time investment to make them accessible.
One potential solution, at least for videos, is to make it easier for content creators to insert subtitles. If this could be done at the same time as when the video is being uploaded then perhaps more people may be willing to do this (the quality of the subtitling won’t be at a professional level, but hey, it’s better than nothing).
Another idea I’ve heard is to allow any website visitor to create subtitles for the video, as a kind of wiki. How many website owners would be willing to do this? Some of the big players providing video content such as YouTube might… but I can’t imagine many others would.
Does anyone else have ideas for how we can encourage website owners to provide accessible video and audio?