It is important to make the content on your website and on social media accessible. There are lots of great tips out there for making your content accessible to all (such as using Alt. Text). However, there were a couple of my own that I wanted to share in relation to making content accessible for those of us who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Use Subtitles, Captioning, and Transcripts for Videos, Podcasts, and Vlogs
More and more content is becoming video and audio content with videos and podcasts continuing to be very popular. However, this is often inaccessible to those of us who are deaf or hard of hearing. Auto-generated subtitles (if there are any) can only take us so far.
Caption your Content
We would encourage you to ensure that all video content is captioned. There are a number of services that will do this for you professionally. However, you can also do your own captions in YouTube and other video editing programmes.
YouTube auto captions are better than nothing, but they are not great. Particularly when it comes to specialised topics and legal terminology.
While I find them exhausting, I cope okay with auto captions. However, those with more severe hearing loss than I have will not cope with auto-generated captions. They won’t even bother looking at content that only has auto-generated subtitles as the quality is so bad. So do take the time to think about your audience and making your content accessible to them. Properly!
However, it should be said that an easy way to create your own captions for your video content is to do a copy edit of YouTube’s auto-generated captions.
Create your Own Captions
Creating your own captions and transcripts can be a viable option if you don’t want to pay for a captioning service. If you create your own captions make sure you follow these simple rules:
- Use a sans serif font like Arial.
- For standard definition videos stick with 22 pt. font.
- For high definition videos double that to 44 pt. font.
- No more than 32 characters per line AND break up your lines of text with the natural flow of speech.
- Write what is actually being said, don’t change the words.
- Indicate a change in speaker with the person’s name.
You can read the full Subtitle Guidance from the BBC.
Transcripts
If you have a Podcast, you should also consider doing a transcript. Incredibly few podcasts provide transcripts much to my disappointment. You can use a tool such as Web Captioner to generate a text file while recording a podcast. Then you simply have to edit it. We would also recommend that you provide a time-stamped transcript for podcasts.
Why does this matter?
It matters because your audience should be important to you. You should want the content that you are producing to be accessible and understood by all those who want to read/watch/listen to it.
Often I get frustrated by a lack of accessible content. My friends and colleagues will often make recommendations for new video content or podcasts. However, I am often unable to watch or listen to it due to lack of subtitles (in many cases even awful auto-generated subtitles) or transcripts.
Additionally, many webinars still don’t have subtitles. It can be stressful, frustrating and exhausting simply trying to participate in what everyone else is listening to, watching and talking about. If the subtitles don’t work (and I don’t have to perserve for work) I will just leave it, I won’t even bother watching.
It is not worth it and I would rather give my time, energy and money to someone who is prepared to invest a little bit of extra time in making their content accessible.
Comments