Create Accessible Video & Audio

Learn

Before every hitting record, you must understand the core principles of universal design. Accessibility isn’t just about compliance; it’s about user experience.

• WCAG Guidelines: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is the international “rulebook” for making the digital world fair for everyone. When you check a video’s accessibility compliance, you are often checking against this set of rules.
• Text Equivalents: These are the “scripts” or “labels” that provide a text-based alternative to information that is otherwise only heard or seen.
• Assistive Technology: Screen readers (like NVDA or JAWS) “watch” a video by reading the synchronized caption tracks and text transcripts, not the visual frames. Without these text-based layers, the content remains invisible and silent to students who rely on assistive technology.

Key Elements: Focus on the “Big Three”

When recording, editing, or publishing your video and audio, here are the “big three” things to pay closest attention to:

1. Audio Description: The verbal narration of key visual elements that aren’t conveyed through the main soundtrack. This ensures that someone who cannot see the screen understands the actions, gestures, and scene changes taking place.
2. Captions: Synchronized text that displays the audio portion of a video in real-time. This includes dialogue, speaker identification, and essential non-speech sounds (like [Music swells] or [Door slams]).
3. Transcripts: A standalone text version of your media. For audio-only content (like a podcast), a Basic Transcript is required. For video, a Descriptive Transcript that includes visual descriptions is the gold standard for accessibility.

Adopt

Consistency is the enemy of exclusion. Transition from “fixing” media to “creating” it accessibly from the start.

• Scripts are King: Starting with a script or a detailed outline isn’t just a best practice for production; it serves as the ready-made foundation for your Transcript and Captions later.
• The “Born Accessible” Approach: It is 100x faster to narrate your on-screen visuals while recording (e.g., “This chart shows a 20% increase”) than it is to retroactively add a separate audio description track to a finished video.
• Tool Integration: You may use a variety of platforms and tools when recording, editing, and publishing audio and video content. Take some time before starting to review the tool and their available accessibility features and plan to use them throughout your project.

Archive

You likely have thousands of old videos. You don’t necessarily need to remediate all of them, but you do need a strategy.

• Clear Labeling: If an archived video or podcast isn’t accessible, provide a clear way for users to request an accessible version. (e.g., “To request a transcript of this historical recording, please contact [Department Email]”)
• Audit Your Assets: Identify which media files are still being viewed and which are “dead.” Many hosting platforms like Panopto or YouTube provide analytics—if a video hasn’t been watched in two years, it’s a prime candidate for archiving.
• Prioritize by Impact: If a 10-year-old lecture recording gets one view a year, unpublish it or provide a text summary. If a high-traffic “How-to” video or a departmental podcast episode is inaccessible, it needs immediate remediation or a Descriptive Transcript.

Update

Media files are dynamic. When you update a video or repurpose an old recording, you must ensure the accessibility “layers” (captions and transcripts) stay in sync.

• The 99% Rule: Automated captions (from Zoom, YouTube, or AI tools) are a great starting point, but they are not compliant until a human reviews them. Manual verification is required to correct technical jargon, proper names, and punctuation that AI often misses.
• Contextual Review: Much like Alt Text, captions need to be helpful, not just present. Ensure that non-speech sounds (e.g., [Laughter], [Door Slams], or [Music swells]) are included so the full context of the audio is clear.
• Player Accessibility: When you use Boise State-supported platforms like YouTube or Panopto, accessibility features like keyboard navigation and 400% zoom have already been reviewed. If you choose to use a non-standard or custom video player, you are responsible for ensuring it meets these technical requirements; otherwise, we recommend sticking to the standard tools to ensure a seamless experience.

Accessibility “rot” happens when a team stops paying attention. Maintenance ensures your standards don’t slip over time.

• Training Updates: As software evolves (e.g., new AI features for auto-generating captions in Premiere or Zoom), take some time to explore these new tools and features.
• Regular Audits: Schedule quarterly reviews of your most-viewed videos and podcast episodes to ensure links to transcripts are still active and captions are still appearing correctly.
• Feedback Loops: Provide a simple way for viewers and listeners to report barriers. Your audience members are your best “quality control” experts for identifying timing issues or missing descriptions.

Question to Ask

As you review your media library, ask these four questions:

1. Is the media currently in active use for a public service or program? (e.g., Is it a current “How-to” video for registration?) Yes: Make it accessible! No: Continue to question 2.
2. Has the video or audio been accessed/viewed within the last year? Yes: Make it accessible! No: Continue to question 3.
3. Is there a legal or regulatory requirement to keep the media accessible? Yes: Make it accessible! No: Continue to question 4.
4. Does the content contain critical info relating to civil rights or student obligations? Yes: Make it accessible! No: It can be considered archivable.

Steps to Archive

To properly archive a video or audio file:

• Remove from primary navigation: Move the video to “Unlisted” or “Private” on YouTube/Panopto so it doesn’t appear in active search results.
• Create a “Historical” section: If the media must remain public, label the page or playlist clearly as “Historical Reference Only.”
• Provide an accessibility notice: Example: “This recording is archived and may not be captioned. To request a transcript, please contact [Department] at [Email].”
• Process for requests: Ensure you can provide a Descriptive Transcript [T] in a reasonable timeframe if a student or staff member requests it.

Old Video? Find a Better Version First!

Before you begin the labor-intensive process of manually captioning an old or poor-quality recording, try to locate a “born-accessible” version. A high-quality original source is always better than trying to “fix” a recording of a recording.

Follow this Search Order:

1. Link to the Official Source: Instead of uploading a screen recording of a documentary, TedTalk, or news segment, check if the official creator (e.g., PBS, YouTube Official Channels, or the University Library) already provides a captioned version. Linking directly to the source is more accessible and respects copyright.
2. Check the University Library: Many educational videos are available through library databases and are professionally captioned and often include full, searchable transcripts.
3. Find the Web (HTML) Version: If the video is a recording of a speech or a presentation, check if the full text exists as a blog post, article, or press release. Providing the link to the text is often a faster and more accessible solution for your audience.
4. Request from the Producer: If you are using a specific educational media set, contact the publisher’s accessibility department. They may be able to provide the master caption file (.srt or .vtt) or a high-quality digital download that is already compliant.
5. The Last Resort: Only move to “Manual Remediation” (typing out every word and time-stamp) if you have exhausted all options to find an official, captioned version of the content.

Why this matters

A video without captions or a podcast without a transcript is a digital “dead end.” Much like a scanned PDF is just a “picture of text,” an uncaptioned video is just a “picture of sound” that remains invisible to screen readers and inaccessible to many students.

Manual remediation of audio and video is incredibly labor-intensive. It can take up to 1 hour of manual labor to properly remediate just 1 minute of video when you account for correcting AI-generated text, syncing timestamps, and adding audio descriptions.

Finding an accessible version or planning for accessibility from the start isn’t just a “best practice”—it is the only sustainable way to ensure student success and protect your most valuable resource: your time.