Video

Overview

Videos that present information only through sound or visuals are not accessible to all people. Without closed captioning, many of those people would not be able to fully understand or appreciate your video. Closed captions aren’t just for people with hearing disabilities. If English isn’t someone’s first language, for example, seeing written text with the spoken language can be very helpful to understand it. Or, if viewers are in a setting where sound isn’t allowed, closed captions let them still view the video.

Two pieces of supplementary descriptive text must be provided for each video file on a webpage: 

  1. Captions
  2. Descriptive text (or audio description)

Video files are most commonly added into WordPress by embedding a URL from a third-party source into a Rich Text Editor or Gutenberg Video Block. Captions are entirely managed within the third-party video platform (e.g. YouTube or Vimeo). Content creators should ensure that the videos they are embedding into a WordPress page already have captions added from the third party source. If captions are not present, they should not be added to the WordPress page.

Additionally, one of the following descriptions must accompany each video:

  1. Descriptive text of the video within the content of a website before the video is shown or provide a link to another web page that describes the video.
  2. Audio track that describes the video, for example, if the video included a step-by step diagram of a chemical process, the audio track should describe that process.

Finally, videos must not automatically play when the page is loaded, and the user must be able to stop, pause and rewind all videos. These settings are generally controlled in the third party source and should be enabled from the settings there.

Optimizing Video

Video length and resolution greatly impact a video file size. Large video can cause website performance and playback issues depending on the user’s connection.

  • Shorter videos and smaller frame rates help reduce file size. Trim your video to only what you absolutely need, and set a frame rate of 24 frames per second.
  • Videos can be compressed for the web using a video compression tool like Handbrake. A resolution of 720p (1280 pixels width by 720 pixels height) and max file size of 1 MB are suitable for most instances.
  • Strip the audio channel if the video is being used as a background video.
  • Avoid videos with excessive movement to accommodate users with motion sensitivity. It’s a best practice to offer users play/pause controls in UI for video for this reason.
  • If using a hosted video, such as YouTube or Video, no further file compression is required.

Descriptive Text and Captions

  1. Provide a descriptive text title for each video. 
  2. Provide captions for all pre-recorded videos where the sound is synchronized with the visuals.
  3. Provide a descriptive text transcript for all pre-recorded videos (e.g. a silent movie).
  4. Include all dialogue and the identity of who is speaking.
  5. Include any non-speech information conveyed through sound (e.g. meaningful sound effects).
  6. Speakers should be identified when more than one person is on-screen or when the speaker is not visible.
  7. If providing a link to a descriptive text transcript, ensure that the link occurs immediately after the text alternative that identifies the time-based media content.
  8. The user must be able to stop, pause and rewind all video files.
  9. Exceptions: If the video is a media alternative for text and clearly labelled as such, captions and a descriptive text transcript may not be required. 
  10. Note: A media alternative for text is provided for those who benefit from alternate representations of text. Media alternatives for text may be audio-only, video-only (including sign-language video), or audio-video.

What to Avoid

  1. Do not rely solely on automated captions.
  2. Do not skip identifying different speakers who may not appear on screen.
  3. Do not omit any dialogue or important sounds.