Why you must make video and audio content accessible

You must make sure all your content is accessible to everyone.

As a public sector body, we're legally required to make the content on our website as accessible as possible. The government checks our content to make sure it complies with the internationally recognised Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Find out more about accessibility or contact beta-content@bath.ac.uk if you have any questions.

Who needs accessible video and audio content

Some visitors to our site have disabilities that make it hard for them to use video and audio content. These disabilities include:

hearing or visual impairments
difficulty focusing on, processing, and understanding information provided visually or through sound
sensitivity to sound

Creating accessible media isn’t just valuable for people with disabilities, for example, video captions can help people:

in loud environments like airports or restaurants
in quiet environments like libraries or on public transport
who are non-native speakers of a language
who retain information better when they can hear and see it simultaneously

Ways to make video and audio content accessible

The WCAG guidelines say we must provide:

captions for prerecorded video content with audio
a transcript (a text version of the recording) for prerecorded audio-only content
a descriptive transcript or audio description for prerecorded video-only content (without audio)

Captions for video content with audio

You must provide captions for people who can’t hear the audio in any pre-recorded video content.

Read about the WCAG 2.2 criterion, SC 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded (Level A).

Video captions provide a text alternative for dialogue as well as descriptions of noises and sounds included in the audio, such as a door slamming or a phone ringing.

Captions help people with hearing impairments and those who don’t want the sound on.

There are two types of captions:

closed captions - viewers can turn closed captions on or off and, depending on the media player, adjust the text size and colour to make them easier to read
open captions – these are burnt onto the video itself so users can’t adjust them or turn them off

Closed captions are better than open captions for making your video content accessible.

Transcripts for audio-only and video-only content

You must provide transcripts for people who can’t:

hear prerecorded audio-only content
see prerecorded video-only content

Read about the WCAG 2.2 criterion, SC 1.2.1 Audio-only and Video-only (Prerecorded) (Level A).

Audio-only content

You must provide a ‘basic transcript’ for audio-only content. This is a text version of any speech and other sounds people need to understand the audio content if they can’t hear it.

Providing a text-based version of audio content, like a podcast, means people with hearing impairments can read the information provided in the audio-only content.

Video-only content

You must provide a ‘descriptive transcript’ (or audio description) for video-only content. This is a text alternative to a video which describes the visual content for people who can’t see it.

Providing a descriptive transcript means people with visual impairments can use assistive technologies to understand the information in the video. Assistive technologies can read the information out or translate it into Braille.

Subtitles

Subtitles provide a text alternative for audible dialogue, for example, to translate dialogue into another language. Subtitles don't describe background noises, so the user needs to be able to hear the original audio.

Subtitles aren’t required for making content accessible.

Create closed captions for video content

There are a few ways you can create closed captions for video content. You can:

upload your video to Panopto and generate captions, which you can then add to your video online
use the closed captions Vimeo creates automatically when you upload a video - you can do the same on YouTube if you’re uploading your video for social media
commission a third-party service to create captions for your video, which you can then add to your video online

Automatically generated captions don't meet accessibility requirements unless they’ve been edited.

Whichever method you use, you must review and edit captions before you embed your video on the website. Inaccurate captions can mislead or confuse people who can’t hear the audio.

Using Panopto to create closed captions

Panopto (also called Re:View) is a secure way of generating captions for videos and is supported by the University.

When your video is processed, you can follow Panopto’s guidance to:

When you’ve edited the captions and you’re sure they’re accurate, you can download the caption file.

On your computer, change the file extension at the end of the file name from .txt to .srt. This is so you can upload the file to Vimeo or YouTube.

Buying transcripts from third-party suppliers

Platforms like Vimeo and Panopto generate editable captions and transcripts for free, but you can also buy them from external UK-based suppliers like:

These suppliers create human-made captions which should be more accurate than automatically generated captions from Panopto and Vimeo. You must still review captions from third-party suppliers to make sure they’re correct.

Add captions to a video on Vimeo

If you’re planning to embed your video on the website, you need to upload it to Vimeo and then add the captions.

You can add the captions yourself by logging in to the University's Vimeo channel.

If you need the login details for Vimeo, contact the Digital team at web-support@bath.ac.uk to request them.

When you’ve logged in, you can add the caption file to your video on Vimeo.

When you’ve added the captions, check they’re correct by playing the video with the sound on. If you find any errors, you can edit your video’s transcript in Vimeo to correct the captions.

Create transcripts for audio-only and video-only content

Creating basic transcripts for audio-only content

You can use Panopto (also called Re:View) to create an editable transcript of an audio file. You can then publish the transcript on the website and link to it from audio platforms like Soundcloud.

When your video is processed you can follow Panopto’s guidance to add automatic captions to your audio file.

When the captions are ready, download the caption file.

Turning captions into a transcript

Basic transcripts should identify the speaker and provide the words they’re saying.

To identify a speaker, add their name, followed by a colon, before any words they speak. Make a new paragraph for each new speaker.

You should also remove the timestamps.

Find out more about creating transcripts and see an example from W3C.

Adding basic transcripts to the website

When you’ve created your basic transcript, you should add it to the website by creating a Corporate information page with the subtype ‘Speech’.

Make sure you give the page a clear and descriptive page title that’s easy to understand out of context.

When you’ve had the page reviewed and published, link to it, using descriptive link text, from the page where you embedded the audio content.

Writing descriptive transcripts for video-only content

If you create a video without audio content, you must write a transcript to describe the information in the video for people who can’t see it.

If you prefer, you can create a separate audio track to provide the same information.

In your text alternative or audio track, describe any information in the video which is shown as:

text
diagrams, graphs, or other imagery
animations

For example, if you embed a video demonstrating how to complete a process, you should describe the process in words. You can do this on the same page or on another page.

If you add the descriptive transcript to another page, create a Corporate information page with the subtype ‘Speech’.