Multimedia

Accessibility Standards Checklist

Requirement

Provide captions or transcripts or audio descriptions of important audio and video content that are synchronized with the presentation.

Reason

Audio and video content without descriptions are not accessible. You must provide a text equivalent of the audio transcript. This is not only useful for visually impaired users, but all users benefit from transcripts of audio material that they can read at their leisure or refer back to. In addition, providing transcripts also allows users to scan material and determine if there is content that is useful to them without having to listen through an entire broadcast. You must also provide synchronized captioning for the video transcript. Synchronized captioning would be required so someone reading the captions could also watch the speaker and associate relevant body language with the speech.

Examples

Audio Content

Media Access Generator (MAGpie) is a free tool for creating captions and audio descriptions compatible with RealPlayer, QuickTime and Windows Media Player.

Video Content

Give a detailed description.

  • [A computer showing text highlighted in a browser window as the text is read aloud by a synthesizer]
  • Reporter: Welcome to TennesseeAnytime.org, The official Web site of the state of Tennessee.
  • [A man sitting at the computer listens to the synthesized voice. Text is highlighted as it is spoken.]
  • Computer: [synthesized voice ] ...Thank you for stopping by.
  • [video clip ends.]

The World Wide Web Consortium maintains a page on Synchronized Multimedia that discusses the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) and developments in detail.

Suggestions for testing this on your pages

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