Multimedia Accessibility Audio and Video in all its variety

W3/WCAG Guidelines Transcript: probably required Audio Description: may be required Captions: probably required Timeliness: accessibility features need to be included at the time a multimedia item is published, not later. WCAG20/media-equiv.html WCAG20/media-equiv.html

Pitfalls to avoid YouTube “Autocaptions” or other speech- recognition-based solutions (‘autocraptions’). Failing to include all relevant info (significant sounds besides speech, visuals, etc.) Failing to provide in a timely manner. Offering a non-equivalent alternative or non- equitable access.

Additional Considerations Many players are partially or totally inaccessible to keyboard-only users. Closed captions may not display depending on the player an end user has access to, even if the video has an associated caption file. Captions, whether open or closed, are not accessible to screen-readers, so may not help a deaf-blind user. Interactive transcripts, when complete, accurate, and properly implemented, can often provide the necessary features for many different user groups, plus SEO.

Implementing Captioning Who are your major players? – Who produces multimedia for your institution? – Who houses and distributes multimedia for your institution, whether it is produced in-house or acquired? Do you have a policy/procedure? – Student-centric or universal design model? Do you already have a captioning service?

Areas to address Policy/procedure. Audit of products and media. Education of media producers on appropriate products and techniques to use. Communication/collaboration among users. Consider central archive or other way of ensuring re-use of captioned media rather than creation of new copies. Strategy for addressing retrofit plus new production.

NAU Example P&P addition in process for all technology, but currently mandates WCAG 2.0 AA for web. Audit of existing media done as part of justification for RFP for media repository and streaming system (collaboration with other stakeholders). Producer education in development (collaboration with other stakeholders). Combination system for captioning: accepts requests for both immediate need and for proactive planning (collaboration with other stakeholders).