Guides: D4D Accessibility Guide: Videos &amp; Media

Milestone Overview: Captions

Video content should have captions

Captions provide a text description of the audio and sound of a video or multimedia content. This users engage with the content even if they aren't able or don't want to use the sound portion.

Accessibility Best Practices

If you are going to add video content to your guide do so using the Media Asset tool.

That will allow you to embed content from YouTube or other sources that you can reuse across multiple guides and update more easily using the Asset Management tools.
Be careful not to set the video to autoplay when you embed it.
If you embed videos, but captions and transcripts aren't available from the media widget viewer, also include a link to the video directly and add a description for that link that indicates to the user that captions, transcripts, audio description, etc. can be found at the link. (See example regarding YouTube video on Closed Captions below.)
Add a <title> attribute to the embed code if video is using an iFrame
- The should be the title of the video
- Some media widgets will default to the software name not the title of the content.

If you are linking to someone else’s video try to select content that has captions and a transcript.

If you have no alternative resource make it clear in the link text that the video is not accessible.
Reach out to the video owner and ask them to consider adding captions and a transcript. You may find they agree.

If you're creating video content

Build captioning into your video planning and overall workflow
Find out what captioning resources your organization provides or are approved for video content creators

Auto-captioning

Some video platforms can provide automated captioning. Be aware that automated captions will need to be reviewed so be prepared to spend the time to do it (and/or get help).
You may need to spend at least double the length of your video captioning and/or reviewing captions

NYU Resources

NYU Digital Accessibility How-To Guide: Video and Audio (has info about Stream and YouTube)
Imagine watching a movie without the audio, or listening to dialogue without watching the screen; it would be difficult to understand the full context of the movie. If your page includes video content, it’s essential to provide captions, transcripts, and/or audio descriptions to ensure all users are able to understand your video’s message.
NYU Stream
NYU Stream provides the NYU community with a wealth of media tools that facilitate collaborative communications, content sharing, as well as a repository to store your audio, video, and images files. NYU Stream is a great way to share media via NYU Classes (faculty only), NYU Wikis, Web Publishing, Google Sites, as well as any other website that you have publishing rights.
NYU Stream: Ordering Captions
NYU Stream: Editing Captions

LibGuides Help Center Resources

How do I embed a video, chat widget, search box, or other widget on my guide? - Help Center
Media/Widget assets are ideal for embedding HTML content in your guides, such as YouTube videos, search widgets, or widgets from other Springy tools (like LibCal Hours widgets, for example). Unlike Rich Text/HTML content items, Media/Widget assets are stored in your assets library. As a result, once someone creates a Media/Widget asset, it can be reused over and over in other guides.

Don’t do this! // How to do captions right! [CC]

Don’t do this! // How to do captions right! [CC]
This link will take you to the YouTube page where the video is stored. There are closed captions and transcripts included.

Additional Resources

WebAIM: Captions
Captions are text versions of the spoken word presented within multimedia. Captions allow the content of web audio and video to be accessible to those who do not have access to audio. As the average age of the population increases, so does the number of people with hearing impairments. According to US government figures, one person in five has some functional hearing limitation.
WebAIM: Audio Descriptions
Audio descriptions are primarily for users with visual disabilities. They provide additional information about content that is visible on the screen. If visual content is not available via audio, it will be inaccessible to those with visual disabilities. Though not commonly utilized in web multimedia, audio descriptions are gaining in popularity and are necessary for WCAG 2 Level AA conformance.
Accessible U: Multimedia - Video Formats
Summary: The format of your video and the tools you use to play video matter. Consistency is important - nobody wants to try to use three different tools for three different videos. Consider using YouTube since it is University-supported and allows for easy captioning.
Accessible U: Video Captions and Transcripts
Summary: Captions (for video) or a transcript (for audio) should be included with all multimedia content produced by University of Minnesotans, including instructor- and student-created content. These alternate formats improve the playback experience for your audience in a variety of contexts and situations.
Accessible U: Audio Description
Summary: Audio descriptions are additional information added to the audio track of a video during natural breaks in the audio part of the recording. These descriptions explain what is happening in the video that is not evident from the narration.

Project Management Suggestions

If your team is new to captioning find out if some other group in your organization creating video content, like your university's TV channel. Reach out to them to ask if they have experience captioning and what tools they're using.

Talk to your LibGuides authors to identify who's using or creating a lot of video content. Get them involved in developing best practice around captioning workflows and training. If that training can be offered more widely than just LibGuides authors the better to help create cross-departmental buy-in and understanding about accessibility.

D4D Accessibility Guide