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Videos and Media

Creating accessible multimedia ensures that all members of the community—including students, faculty, staff, and visitors with disabilities—can fully engage with our digital content.

To maintain compliance with ADA Title II and institutional policies, all video content hosted on or embedded within our web properties must meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards.

The Core WCAG 2.1 AA Video Requirements

Meeting WCAG 2.1 AA means addressing both the content of the video and the technology used to play it. Below are the mandatory requirements for all pre-recorded and live video content.

1. Captions for Pre-recorded Video

All pre-recorded videos that include audio must have accurate, synchronized closed captions.

  • Accuracy: Auto-generated captions (like those created by YouTube) are a great starting point but are not compliant on their own. They must be manually reviewed and edited for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and correct capitalization.
  • Non-Speech Audio: Captions must include important non-speech sounds that contribute to the context or narrative (e.g., [students cheering], [fire alarm ringing]).
  • Speaker Identification: When multiple people are speaking, or a speaker is off-screen, the captions must identify who is talking.

2. Captions for Live Video

Any live-streaming video content (such as a live broadcast of a campus event, graduation, or town hall) must include live closed captions.

3. Audio Descriptions

Audio descriptions provide a verbal track explaining important visual details that cannot be understood from the main soundtrack alone.

  • When it's required: If a video includes on-screen text, chart presentations, or visual actions critical to understanding the content, and these elements are not spoken aloud by the presenter, a secondary audio description track must be provided.
  • The "Blindfold Test": If you close your eyes and listen to the video, can you still understand everything going on? If not, the video requires an audio description.

4. Accessible Media Players

The video player itself must be accessible to users who navigate the web using a keyboard or screen reader.

  • Keyboard Navigation: Users must be able to play, pause, mute, adjust volume, and toggle captions using only the "Tab," "Enter," "Spacebar," and Arrow keys.
  • No Keyboard Traps: A user must be able to navigate into the video player, interact with it, and navigate out of it without getting "stuck."
  • Recommendation: Embedding videos via the official institutional YouTube channel generally satisfies this requirement, as the native YouTube player is fully keyboard and screen-reader accessible.

5. Control Over Auto-Playing Content

Videos should never auto-play. There must be a control that anyone can use to pause, stop, or hide the content, including people who use assistive technologies like screen readers.

Best Practices for Content Creators

  • Plan for Accessibility Early: If you are scripting a marketing video or an instructional lecture, write the script so that the speaker naturally describes what is happening on screen. This often eliminates the need for a separate audio description track later.
  • Avoid Burned-In Captions (Open Captions): Do not permanently encode text over the video file. Instead, use Closed Captions (via an SRT or VTT file). Closed captions allow users to resize the text, change the contrast, or use translation tools, whereas burned-in text cannot be modified.
  • Provide a Transcript: While not strictly required by AA if captions and audio descriptions are perfect, providing a downloadable text transcript is considered the gold standard for usability. It benefits students who want to study the material at their own pace or users with deaf-blindness using refreshable Braille displays.

Additional Resources