Making audio and video accessible
Not everyone can see or hear the videos or audio we use on our site. These guidelines will help make sure everyone can access this type of content.
On this page
Who needs accessible video and audio?
It’s important to provide alternatives to video and audio content for people who can’t see or hear them – for example, people with hearing or vision loss.
However, situational accessibility is a big factor when it comes to audio and video. More and more people are choosing to watch videos with captions for a variety of reasons – for example, while on a busy train or a quiet offices. Some people also prefer transcripts as they’re easy to scan and you can search for specific keywords.
Create transcripts of videos or audio
Transcripts are important for lots of reasons. They:
- Help users who can’t hear the video
- Help users who would rather use a screen reader
- Help users who want to quickly scan the content for specific information
- Allow users to search the page for keywords
- Allow search engines to understand what the page is about
A transcript should contain all the words spoken out loud in the video, as well as any relevant sounds or gestures.
Use captions on all your videos
Videos with audio require captions that are synchronized with the audio track. Everything said in the video should be included in the captions, and sounds should be included as well.
Captions help users who can’t hear the video understand what’s being said. They’re also useful for people who are choosing not to watch with audio because of a situational circumstance – for example, not wanting to disturb the people around them.
There are two types of captions: open and closed.
- Open caption means that the caption is embedded into the video itself, and cannot be turned off.
- Closed captioning means that the caption can be turned on and off.
Auto-generated captions
Auto-generated captions are generally not great but better than nothing. They’re often inaccurate, can struggle to interpret accents and often get things like people’s names or places wrong. Write your own captions as much as possible.
Consider using audio description
Audio descriptions describe what is happening in the video out loud so that it’s accessible to people with vision loss. There are two ways to create audio descriptions:
- A narrator describes all the visual information
- Add a separate audio track that describes the visual information
Consider using British Sign Language (BSL)
Some people with hearing loss may find it easier to watch videos in BSL than videos with captions. Some may also find it easier to watch BSL videos than read large amounts of content, since BSL is the first language of many deaf people in the UK.
If you can, you may want to consider creating sign language versions of your videos and of your written content.
Make sure video and audio functionality is accessible
Users should be able to access and play video or audio content using just their keyboard if they need to. They should also be able to use controls like pause or skip using a keyboard.
Avoid using Autoplay for videos, unless you have warned the user and they can control this.