Accessibility

Accessibility Quick Tip: Making Video Recordings Usable by All.

Thanks to the folks at CU Boulder's Digital Accessibility Office as well as the Governor's Office of Information Technology, for some great ideas for this post.

By Regan Harper: Published on
Accessibility

Making video recordings accessible ensures that all users, including those with disabilities, can engage with the content. Here are the key steps to achieve accessibility:

Pre-Production Tips

  • Identify what important visual content will need to be described audibly (e.g. graphs, equations, images, etc.). Our guide on providing spoken descriptions of visual content provides details on how to do this.
  • Important on-screen text should be described audibly; this includes names and affiliations of speakers.
  • If you are deciding on a color scheme, ensure the text and background color combinations meet minimum color contrast standards. You can use the WebAIM Contrast Checker or the TPGi Colour Contrast Analyser for this. If you are using CU brand colors, refer to the CU Boulder color contrast recommendations.
  • Advise all speakers and presenters of the recommendations listed in the Production/Filming Tips section below.
  • Script all spoken content in advance. This will ensure all images are properly described and will speed up the captioning process in post-production. It will also allow you to assess and adjust the content so that it is delivered at an appropriate level of complexity for your target audience.

Production/Filming Tips

  • Speakers should state their name and title/affiliation audibly.
  • Narrate any important visuals, such as graphs, equations, or images that need to be conveyed for the listener to fully understand the content.
  • Be specific when talking about visuals on the screen. If the speaker uses locational references like “here” or “there”, they should also include a description of the item they are referencing.
    • Don’t say: “This part over here represents the slope of a line.”
    • Do say: “In this equation, ‘y equals mx plus b’ represents the slope of a line.”

Post-Production Tips

Graphics

If you are adding text or video graphics to your video, ensure the color contrast for text meets minimum standards. To check contrast, use the TPGi Colour Contrast Analyser (for images) or WebAIM Contrast Checker (for hexadecimal color codes).

Additionally, ensure there is no rapid blinking or flashing content in your video to avoid triggering seizures in individuals with photosensitive epilepsy. If flashing content is unavoidable, provide a warning beforehand.

Ensure Proper Color Contrast

Verify that text, visuals, and graphics in the video have sufficient color contrast to be legible for users with low vision or color blindness.

Provide Captions

Include time-synchronized captions for spoken dialogue and important sounds. Closed captions allow users to toggle them on or off. Closed captions should reflect all spoken content as well as important non-speech sounds, music descriptions, and indications of tone when someone is speaking. You may also include a transcript.

Ensure captions are accurate, reflect the speaker’s tone and intent, and include non-speech sounds (e.g., laughter, applause). And, ensure that any included captions do not block essential visuals on the screen.

Provide a Transcript

If appropriate, include a text-based transcript of all spoken content and relevant visual information. Offer these as a downloadable file or within the webpage hosting the video.

Include Audio Descriptions

Audio descriptions provide spoken descriptions of visual elements crucial to understanding the content (e.g., actions, scene changes, important text) and are a way to ensure that individuals with a vision-related disability can fully access video content. They consists of a secondary audio track that describes any meaningful visual content during the gaps in the video’s audio content. Audio descriptions should generally be created by someone with experience, and there are a number of third-party vendors who can provide this service for live and pre-recorded material. 

Producing audio descriptions is not always necessary, however. If the video is created in a way that all important visual information is also provided audibly, the audio descriptions will be “baked” into the original content and do not need to be added after the fact. Examples of how to convey visual content audibly in the original audio include:

  • Instead of only showing text at the bottom of the screen that shows an interviewee’s name and title, ask the interviewee to state their name and title when they begin speaking, or provide a voiceover that narrates their name and title.
  • If a graph or figure is shown, explain out loud what the graph is measuring and what the results are.

Use Accessible Media Players

An accessible media player should:

  • Have the ability to be fully operated with a keyboard and have controls (e.g., playback, pause, start) that are recognized by assistive technologies, including screen readers. 
  • Offer a variable speed range.
  • Be operable across several internet browsers, including Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari.
  • Support at least one caption file for closed captioning, but ideally several (to allow for subtitles in languages other than the original spoken language). And, support multiple audio tracks to allow for audio description and translated audio tracks in languages other than the original spoken language.
  • Include controls for play, pause, volume, and caption toggling that are navigable via keyboard and screen readers.
  • Ensure the video player supports captions and allows users to customize settings like font size and color contrast.
  • When hosting, use accessible platforms like YouTube or Vimeo that support accessibility features such as auto-captioning (although these should be edited for accuracy).
  • Ensure the media player is responsive and functions correctly on mobile devices. All captions and controls should be usable and visible on smaller screens.

Enable Keyboard Navigation

Ensure that users can navigate and control the video player using a keyboard or assistive technology.

Test Accessibility

Conduct usability testing with individuals who rely on assistive technologies, such as screen readers or keyboard-only navigation, to ensure the video is fully accessible.

By implementing these steps, you can create video content that is inclusive and accessible to a diverse audience.

Resources:

Regan Harper
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