Video & Audio

Elements of Accessible Audio

  • Provide a transcript of the audio file.
  • Ensure that the audio player is accessible.  

Elements of Accessible Videos

  • Make all text in the video accessible.
  • Provide captions and transcripts.

Include descriptive language and/or audio descriptions

  • Descriptive language allows individuals who cannot see the video visualize the scene.describes the meaningful actions/images in the video.  
  • Audio description is a narration track that is added to a video to describe the meaningful actions and images in the video.

Accessible Files and Media Players

Some audio and video players are not accessible. When selecting a media player, make sure it has clearly identified controls that can be operated using the keyboard alone.

Panopto

  • The Panopto interface and media player are both accessible.
  • Panopto recordings can be made accessible by adding captions. The automated captions Panopto creates are not fully accessible and will need to be edited for accuracy. A third party captioning service can also be used to provide fully accessible captions. 

MP4 Files

  • MP4 files are accessible if they use the general accessibility concepts for audio and video.

Best Practices

  • Do not use autoplay.
    • Allow the user to decide when to play the media.
  • Ensure that controls are keyboard accessible.
    • Make certain that a mouse is not required for any control and that all controls are operable with the keyboard alone.
  • Support alternative formats.
    • The media player should support both captions and audio descriptions.

Resources

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