Captioning Considerations for Web-based Media Jayme Johnson Director of Accessibility and User Experience CCC Online Education Initiative

Overview Terms and FAQ’s Technology Requirements Legal Requirements Formatting Captions Captioning Process (Generic) Tools for Captioning Web-based Video Creating Captions with YouTube (DEMO)

My first rule of captioning… If you can pay someone else to do your captioning, then do so! Getting Your Captions: DECT Grant: http://www.canyons.edu/Offices/DistanceLearnin g/Captioning/Pages/default.aspx Purchase captioned media Create your own…

Terms and FAQ’s Captions vs. Subtitles Captions vs. Transcripts Line 21, .scc files, or “Scenarist” Accessible Player Captions as Instructional Technology Transcripts are not good enough YouTube Auto-captioning is unacceptable

Technology requirements Creating Captions A computer/browser that can play YouTube videos Internet connection Digital video Text Transcript (recommended) Playing Captions A computer/browser that can load YouTube videos An accessible player (if not using YouTube)

Legal and Copyright Issues Copyright matters, seek permission Section 508/California 11135 WCAG 2.0 AA FCC: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/captioning- internet-video-programming Chancellor’s Office Legal Opinion M02-22: http://extranet.cccco.edu/Portals/1/Legal/Ops/OpsA rchive/02-22.pdf

Formatting Captions Comprehensive guidelines are available in the Caption Key from: http://www.dcmp.org/captioningkey/ Use two lines. Left-align the two lines. Use 32 characters per line (max). Use Sans Serif Font. Use Upper and Lower case letters. Transcribe Dialogue word-for-word. Ignore nonsense syllables such as “Uh” or “Um”.

Line Division Rules Keep modifier with word it modifies. Keep prepositional phrases together. Keep a person’s name and title together. Break lines before conjunctions (FAN BOYS). Keep auxiliary verb (can, have, will) with the word it modifies. Break captions at the end of a sentence.

Presentation rate Allow a minimum of 1.5 seconds duration for each 32 characters of text. Allow a minimum of two seconds duration to display the last 32 characters of text before “blanking” or removing a caption. Do not display any caption for less than one second. Maximum duration for line of captions should not exceed three seconds (per 32 characters).

Italics Use for voice-over narration. Use for off-screen dialogue, unless entire video is narrated. Dreaming, thinking, etc. Background audio: PA system, intercom announcements, etc. Foreign words should be italicized. Use italics to indicate any kind of emphasis.

Sound Effects Include important sounds. Use descriptions (in brackets) and onomatopoeia. Italicize if off-screen. Use lowercase for describing sound effects. Sustained sounds use the present participle (-ing). Be as precise as possible.

Music Use descriptions that indicate mood. Caption lyrics verbatim. Include name of vocalist/group and song title in brackets. Put musical notes around lyrics (leave space). When no lyrics are available or you can not use them, describe the mood/attitude of the lyrics.

Generic Captioning Process Transcribe audio content. Format the digital text. Determine timing for each line. Save digital caption file. Integrate caption file and video file together for presentation. Deliver video in an accessible video player.

Accessible Video Player Required Captions are not enough Keyboard controllable interface Caption stream being presented as accessible information? Examples: http://terrillthompson.com/ableplayer/ https://www.paypal-engineering.com/2014/09/05/introducing-an-accessible-html5-video-player/

Tools for Captioning Subtitle Horse - http://subtitle-horse.com/ MagPIE - http://ncam.wgbh.org/invent_build/web_multimedia/tools- guidelines/magpie YouTube – http://www.youtube.com Amara – http://www.amara.org

A word about YouTube Video You can only caption your own videos.* YouTube provides robust support for captioning. BEWARE of auto-captions- not adequate! YouTube has other features worth noting. What to do when you don’t own the video… * Amara claims to provide capability to enable other people to caption your videos (crowdsource). This is still under investigation…

Demo Time Let’s do some captioning…

Resources for Further Study Captioning Key: http://www.dcmp.org/captioningkey/ Subtitle Horse: http://subtitle-horse.com/ YouTube Revealed: http://wac.osu.edu/examples/youtube-player- controls/ Caption other people’s YouTube videos: http://amara.org/en/ WebAIM tutorial: http://webaim.org/techniques/captions/

Questions?

Thank You! johnsonjayme@fhda.edu