Multimedia & Videos

Captions are required for all pre-recorded synchronized media under WCAG 1.2.2. Real-time captions are required for live events. Captions must be accurate, synchronized with the audio, and identify speakers when more than one person is speaking.

Auto-captions: use with significant caution

Auto-generated captions on YouTube, Zoom, and Kaltura are not WCAG-compliant as delivered. They average 60–80% accuracy and regularly misidentify technical terms, names, and course-specific vocabulary. Auto-captions must be reviewed and corrected before content is published or distributed.

• YouTube: Subtitles/CC → Edit → review and correct each caption segment
• Kaltura: Caption & Enrich tab → Edit Captions → review and correct
• Zoom Cloud Recordings: transcripts are generated automatically but require review

Tools for captioning

• YouTube Studio — built-in caption editor for all uploaded videos
• Kaltura — includes captioning tools
• Amara — free community captioning tool (amara.org)
• Rev — professional captioning service (rev.com); fee-based
• 3Play Media — enterprise captioning; ask your department about licensing

Transcripts are required for audio-only content and recommended for all video content as a supplement to captions. A transcript must include all spoken words, speaker identifications, and descriptions of significant non-speech sounds (e.g., [applause], [alarm sounds]).

• Export the corrected caption file from YouTube or Kaltura and clean it up for use as a transcript
• Post the transcript on the same page as the media — not behind an additional click
• For Moodle: use the Moodle text editor to add the transcript text directly below the embedded video

Audio descriptions are narrated descriptions of visual information in a video that is not conveyed by the audio track. Required when the video contains significant visual information that a blind user would miss — such as a demonstration, a chart being discussed, or on-screen text not read aloud.

• The simplest approach: record or re-record the video so the presenter verbally describes all significant visual information (e.g., ‘As you can see in the graph on the left, revenue increases in Q3’ → becomes ‘In this graph, a bar chart shows revenue increasing significantly in Q3’)
• For existing videos: a separate audio description track can be added; this is more complex and typically requires professional services

Learn the basics of how to make accessible audio and video media.  

Understand the difference between audio-only, video-only, and synchronized media and how to make each accessible.

Learn what counts as “success” when captioning your videos – and how to avoid epic (and embarrassing) gaffes.

Every informational image — photographs, illustrations, charts, diagrams, and infographics — must have descriptive alt text.

• In Word: right-click the image → Edit Alt Text
• In PowerPoint: right-click the image → Edit Alt Text
• In Excel: right-click the image → Edit Alt Text
• In HTML/web: add alt attribute to the img tag
• In PDFs: remediate via Adobe Acrobat Pro → Tags panel
• Decorative images: set alt="" in HTML, or mark as decorative in Office apps
• Complex images (charts, graphs, infographics): provide a full text alternative as a caption or nearby paragraph
• Resource: W3C Images Tutorial — w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images

• Learn about alternative text
• Microsoft Word - Create Accessible Images and Other Objects
• Microsoft PowerPoint - Adding Alternative Text to Images and Other Objects
• Microsoft Excel - Adding Alternative Text to Images and Other Objects
• PDF - Remediating PDFs for Accessibility
• Web Development/HTML - W3.org Images Tutorial