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Check out my video lesson below if you would like to learn more about video accessibility and how to provide closed captions and transcripts in Zoom recordings. Read assignment instructions, review lesson references, and explore closed captions and transcripts resources in this Padlet. Thanks for visiting.

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IDT 6500 Zoom Closed Captions and Transcripts Jessica Mullins

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Free online storage and sharing with Screencast.com. 2 GB of storage and 2 GB of bandwidth per month for free. We won't compress, alter or take ownership of your content.

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Zoom Video Closed Captions and Transcripts Assignment Instructions

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Zoom Video Closed Captions and Transcripts Assignment Instructions

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Please read this after watching the video for step-by-step assignment instructions.

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Zoom Video Closed Captions and Transcripts Assignment Instructions

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Click here for IDT 6500 Final Project References

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Mullins References Final Project IDT 6500

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This website provides information on how to caption videos for free in platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Canvas.

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Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions

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Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions

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Transcripts

For multimedia, a transcript can also help users who can neither hear the audio nor see the video. Beyond the spoken words, a transcript should include descriptions of important audio information (like laughter) and visual information (such as someone entering the room). Transcripts help deaf/blind users interact with content using refreshable Braille devices.

Transcripts also allow anyone that cannot access content from either web audio or video (or both) to read a text transcript instead. For most web video, both captions and a text transcript should be provided. For content that is audio only, a transcript will usually suffice-captions are not necessary for audio-only media like a podcast.

Transcripts make multimedia content searchable by search engines and users. Screen reader users also may also prefer a transcript over real-time audio, since most proficient screen reader users set their assistive technology to read at a rate much faster than natural human speech.

In order to be optimally accessible to users with auditory disabilities, web multimedia should include both synchronized captions and a transcript.

Audio Descriptions

Visual content within multimedia must be described via audio in order for the multimedia to be optimally accessible to users with visual disabilities.

Audio descriptions help users with visual disabilities perceive content that is presented only visually, and are necessary for WCAG 2 Level AA conformance. On television, this is often called Descriptive Video Service (DVS). Typically, a narrator describes the visual-only content in the multimedia. Audio descriptions can be provided with the primary video, or in another audio track, or via an alternate version of the video that includes audio descriptions.

Here's a short example of an audio description that you might recognize. Can you visualize what is being described?

Producing audio descriptions can be expensive and time-consuming. However, they are unnecessary if the audio already presents the necessary visual content. If a video displays a list of five important items, the items should be read aloud instead of the audio presenting, "As you can see, there are five important points". Instead of, "Click here and then here," the presenter should describe what is being clicked. This way, no separate audio description track is necessary.

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Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions

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For multimedia, a transcript can also help users who can neither hear the audio nor see the video. Beyond the spoken words, a transcript should include descriptions of important audio information (like laughter) and visual information (such as someone entering the room). Transcripts help deaf/blind users interact with content using refreshable Braille devices.

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Guidelines for Providing Closed Captions and Transcripts

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Guidelines for Providing Closed Captions and Transcripts

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Media posted on the Web should be made accessible to individuals with disabilities, including visually and hearing impaired people. This means providing transcripts and/or captions for audio and video. Providing captions for media is a broadly accepted accessibility standard, as reflected in WCAG 2.0 as well as Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

You can understand the need for transcripts and captions if you keep in mind how people may access content. Blind individuals often use screen readers, which is software that uses audio output to interpret and "read" the content, such as transcripts, out loud to the user. Hearing impaired individuals may depend on captions and transcripts so they can access audio by reading. Some situations require only transcripts. Others require captions. Note that to make captions you must first have a transcript.

Special thanks to Dave Giberson of the San Diego Community College District Online Learning Pathways group for permission to borrow from his excellent guidelines and tutorials.

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Media posted on the Web should be made accessible to individuals with disabilities, including visually and hearing impaired people. This means providing transcripts and/or captions for audio and video. Providing captions for media is a broadly accepted accessibility standard, as reflected in WCAG 2.0 as well as Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

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United States Laws for Video Accessibility

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United States Laws for Video Accessibility

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Are you breaking video accessibility laws and don't even know it?

If you produce or distribute videos in the United States, your content may be subject to federal regulations regarding accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing. The rules are adapting to the digital age, so it's important to be aware of what laws are on the books and which ones apply to you.
Which Captioning Laws Apply to You?

Americans with Disabilities Act - Title II and Title III

Rehabilitation Act - Section 504 and Section 508

21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act

FCC

Here's a quick overview of the most important video accessibility laws in the US:

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Passed in 1990, the ADA set landmark accessibility requirements that affect both private and public entities. Just as the ADA requires handicap ramp access to buildings, it demands that "auxiliary aids" be made available to anyone with a disability. In the case of the deaf and hard of hearing, that means providing closed captioning for videos.

Closed captioning or video transcriptions are required for:

"Public entities," i.e., state and local governments, in both internal and external video communication.

"Places of public accommodations," which is a business in any of the following industries. (Private clubs and religious organizations are exempt.)

While the ADA doesn't specifically address online video (it was written in 1990, after all), legal precedent set by a 2012 lawsuit categorized Netflix, a purely virtual business, as a'place of public accommodation' and therefore required video captioning. The ADA is long overdue for revision to explicitly define a place of public accommodation in the context of the Internet. Until then, the consensus is that any website or online business that fits into one of the 12 categories above is subject to ADA regulations. This would include colleges and universities.

Learn how the ADA impacts video accessibility ➡️

Rehabilitation Act (Sections 508 & 504)

Enacted in 1973, this law originally addressed disability discrimination for federal entities or organizations receiving federal funding. Two amendments, Sections 504 and 508, broaden the act's application to online video content.

Section 504 essentially makes accessibility for individuals with disabilities a civil right. Failure to accommodate individuals with disabilities can result in a discrimination lawsuit. This applies to both federal agencies and any entity that receives federal funding.

Section 508 specifically demands accessibility for electronic media or IT in federal programs or services. While this section doesn't explicitly extend beyond federal agencies, many states passed laws that do extend its reach to organizations that receive federal funding. This includes many colleges, universities, cultural and arts institutions, research facilities, etc. Further, the Assistive Technology Act will not provide funding to states unless they guarantee that all programs - including colleges and universities - will comply with Section 508.

Section 508 requires compliance with WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA success criteria. This means that pre-recorded video must have captions and audio description, and live video must be live captioned.

21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA)

The CVAA requires closed captioning for online video content that was originally broadcast on TV with captions. The CVAA does not cover video content that aired only online and never on television.

Mostly the CVAA affects TV broadcast media companies. If your video content never airs on TV, this law doesn't apply to you.

The CVAA also requires any clips, montages, or compilations to be captioned when published online.

Do you know which captioning laws apply to you? Take this quiz to find out ➡️

FCC Mandates for Closed Captioning of Online Video

Numerous FCC mandates for online video programming were passed in 2014 to build up closed captioning rules for IP-delivered content. Like the CVAA, FCC rulings apply to online video that previously appeared on television. Here are the most prominent updates to FCC rules for online video:

Quality Standards

The FCC has clarified quality standards for television captioning, which set the precedent for online video captioning as a whole.

Accuracy: captions must relay the speaker's exact words with correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar with 99% accuracy. No paraphrasing. Honor the original tone and intent of the speaker.

Time Synchronization: captions must align with the time the words are spoken. Captions must not proceed too quickly for the viewer to read.

Program Completeness: captions must be included from start to finish.

Placement: captions must be positioned on the screen without blocking important content. Font size should be reasonably legible.

User Control

The FCC mandates new user control requirements for consuming online video which previously aired with captions on television. This involves an application or plug-in to video players which allows the viewer to select font type, size, color, opacity, and edge style for their caption display.

Conclusion

If your organization is affected by the ADA, Rehabilitation Act, CVAA, or FCC rulings, you will need closed captioning on your online video or else risk fines and lawsuits.

Curious about which laws apply to you? Take the Accessibility Laws quiz to find out.
This blog post was originally published by Emily Griffin and has since been updated. This blog post is written for educational and general information purposes only and does not constitute specific legal advice. This blog should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in your state.

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U.S. Laws for Captioning Online Video: ADA, Section 508, CVAA, & FCC | 3Play Media

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Are you breaking video accessibility laws and don't even know it? If you produce or distribute videos in the United States, your content may be subject to federal regulations regarding accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing.

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If you want to make your online videos accessible to people with disabilities, you'll need more than just a video transcript.

According to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), transcripts certainly make audio content, such as podcasts, accessible to deaf or hard-of-hearing users. However, video content, with a combination of both visual and audio media, need closed captions and audio description to be fully accessible.

Closed Captions

Closed captions are a textual representation of the sounds on a video, timed with the action on screen. They capture not just the speech but also essential sounds, like [doorbell], [laughter], [applause], etc.

Closed captions appear on the bottom (or top) of the screen as the video plays. This allows the viewer to read the text and absorb the visuals at the same time.

"Ultimately, a video transcript does not offer an equivalent experience for deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers."

Without closed captions, a deaf viewer would have to switch back and forth between watching a video and reading a transcript.

This is a very distracting, disjointed experience.

They can easily lose their place, miss key elements onscreen, get out-of-sync with the video - ultimately, a video transcript does not offer an equivalence experience for deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that an equivalent alternative be provided for people with disabilities. Providing just a video transcript would fall short of effective accommodation.

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires that online videos comply with WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards for accessibility.

In short, closed captions are necessary for your video to comply with the ADA and Section 508.

White Paper Download

Learn why WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 is rapidly emerging as the international standard of web accessibility.

Audio Description

Important visual elements of videos must be communicated to blind or low-vision users in order to be fully compliant with accessibility law. This is known as audio description. Audio description communicates all necessary visual information, such as who is onscreen, where they are, what they are doing, their facial expressions, and any writing that is on the screen.

Descriptions can be in the form of a screenreader-accessible text document or an audio recording. The former may be preferred for deaf-blind users since it can be turned into braille.

Audio description is necessary to make videos fully accessible to blind users according to WCAG 2.0 Level A standards.

The Letter of the Law

For your reference, here is the exact wording of the rules on making web video accessible.
§ 1194.22

Web-based intranet and internet information and applications.

(b) Equivalent alternatives for any multimedia presentation shall be synchronized with the presentation.

1.2.1 Audio-only and Video-only (Prerecorded): For prerecorded audio-only and prerecorded video-only media, the following are true, except when the audio or video is a media alternative for text and is clearly labeled as such:

Prerecorded Audio-only: An alternative for time-based media is provided that presents equivalent information for prerecorded audio-only content.

Prerecorded Video-only: Either an alternative for time-based media or an audio track is provided that presents equivalent information for prerecorded video-only content.

1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded): Captions are provided for all prerecorded audio content in synchronized media, except when the media is a media alternative for text and is clearly labeled as such.

1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded): An alternative for time-based media or audio description of the prerecorded video content is provided for synchronized media, except when the media is a media alternative for text and is clearly labeled as such.

In a digital age, how do you overcome the challenge of making the web accessible to people who cannot see, hear, or use a mouse? Learn more about accessibility and how you can work it into your current content creation.

This post was originally published in February 2016 by Emily Griffith and has since been updated for clarity, comprehensiveness, and freshness.

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Are Transcripts Enough to Make Videos Compliant with Accessibility Law?

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If you want to make your online videos accessible to people with disabilities, you'll need more than just a video transcript. According to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), transcripts certainly make audio content, such as podcasts, accessible to deaf or hard-of-hearing users.

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How closed captions benefit all students

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How closed captions benefit all students

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Key Takeaways

Regardless of whether they have a disability of any kind, a majority of students use closed captions at least some of the time.

Roughly 90 percent of all students who use closed captions find them at least moderately helpful for learning.

Specific ways in which closed captions can aid learning include comprehension, accuracy, engagement, and retention.

When we think of closed captions in higher education, the focus is often on students with disabilities, particularly those who are deaf or hard of hearing. In fall 2015, the Oregon State University Ecampus Research Unit conducted a national survey with 3Play Media to learn more about how all students - those with disabilities and those without - use and perceive closed captions in relation to their learning experiences in the college classroom. This article reports on results of the survey (a full version of the report can be found on the 3Play Media website).

For the recruitment of the student participants, a comprehensive list of U.S. institutions was compiled from membership lists of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, EDUCAUSE, the Association on Higher Education and Disability, and WCET, using publicly available information. We notified institutional representatives (provosts, student affairs representatives, and/or directors of disability services offices) by e-mail about the study, and we also used social media and word-of-mouth communication to spread the word. This effort resulted in 15 university partners.

More than 2,000 students at those 15 institutions across the United States responded to our online survey. Of those reporting, the average age was 24.5, with a range of 18-72. The majority of the respondents were female (62.8 percent). The largest percentage were seniors (24.2 percent); graduate students made up 12.8 percent.

The racial and ethnic mix of respondents was as follows:

White: 68.3 percent

Two or more races: 9.3 percent

Asian: 7.2 percent

Black/African American: 2.6 percent

American Indian or Alaska Native: 1.3 percent

Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 1 percent

Just over 10 percent did not respond to this item; on a separate item, 11.2 percent self-identified as Hispanic.

Results

For the purpose of analysis, student responses to four questions were used to create groups based on reported disabilities. Students were asked whether they:

Were diagnosed with a disability (and what type of disability)

Had a disability other than the types listed

Were registered with an office of disability services at their institution

Required academic accommodations

Students who responded "yes" to any of these questions, regardless of their type of disability, comprised the students reporting disabilities group. Those who responded "no" to all of these items comprised the students not reporting disabilities group. The results showed that 412 students (19.4 percent) reported a disability, 1,547 (72.9 percent) did not report a disability, and 163 (7.7 percent) did not respond to any of the four questions.

Use of Closed Captions

Participants were asked how often they use closed captions when they are available on course videos. Among all respondents, 35 percent said they often or always use closed captioning when available, and an additional 19 percent said sometimes. Thus, more than half (54 percent) of the respondents use closed captions at least some of the time.

Do students who report disabilities differ from students who do not report disabilities in their use of closed captions?

Table 1 shows how participants responded to this item. As this table shows, a larger percentage of students reporting disabilities (26.2 percent) indicated they always use closed captions when available, compared to students not reporting disabilities (15.6 percent). However, the percentages for often and sometimes were similar for the two groups.

Table 1. Frequency of closed caption use

The results of combining the percentages for the responses of sometimes, often, and always are shown in Figure 1. This figure reveals that 61.1 percent of students reporting disabilities use captions at least sometimes. Among students not reporting disabilities, more than 50 percent said they use closed captions at least sometimes. By a gap of about 10 percentage points, more students not reporting disabilities indicated that they use closed captions seldom or never than students reporting disabilities (48.3 percent vs. 37.9 percent).

Figure 1. Student use of closed captioning when available

Helpfulness of Closed Captions

Students from both groups (those who reported having a disability and those who did not) who indicated that they use closed captions ( n = 1,532) were asked how helpful they found the closed captions. Among those students, 59.1 percent reported that the closed captions in course videos are very or extremely helpful, and an additional 29 percent said they were moderately helpful. Thus, more than 88 percent of student respondents who use closed captions said they are at least moderately helpful.

Do students with disabilities differ from students without disabilities in their ratings of the helpfulness of closed captions?

Table 2 shows respondents who reported using closed captions in course videos, broken out by the two groups. Among students reporting disabilities, the largest percentage (33.2 percent) indicated that captions are extremely helpful, compared to 21.1 percent of the students not reporting disabilities. Similar percentages of students in both groups indicated that captions are very helpful.

Table 2. Helpfulness of closed captions

Combining the categories of moderately, very, and extremely helpful shows that a very large percentage of both groups indicated that closed captions are at least moderately helpful (see figure 2).

Figure 2. Helpfulness of closed captions

Closed Captions as a Learning Aid

Students from both groups who indicated that they use closed captions were asked to indicate whether any of the following are reasons why they use closed captions. Figure 3 shows that almost two-thirds of respondents indicated that closed captions help them focus, retain information, and overcome poor audio. In addition, more than 40 percent indicated that they use closed captions for reasons related to sensitive environments (i.e., public places or libraries in which they cannot use sound).

Figure 3. Reasons for using closed captions

All students were asked to describe in their own words why closed captions are helpful. A total of 1,210 open-ended responses were coded into six main themes, which were similar to the results of the closed-ended question about helpfulness shown in figure 3. Table 3 shows the percentage of responses within each of the themes. Three-quarters of respondents indicated that closed captions are helpful because they are learning aids. A large percentage also indicated that captions are helpful because they help with poor audio quality. Six percent stated that they use captions for the accommodation of a learning or physical disability. Just over 5 percent indicated that with captions on, it is easier for students to read along or take notes.

Table 3. Themes of why closed captions are helpful

Due to the large number of responses (913) under the theme of captions as a learning aid, these responses were coded into four subthemes:

Comprehension: 51.9 percent of the responses were related to how captions help students understand, organize, and learn the information in videos.

Accuracy: 33.4 percent were related to how captions help with details, terminology, and spelling in videos.

Engagement: 20.3 percent were related to how captions help students focus on the content of videos.

Retention: 14.6 percent were related to how captions help students retain information in the videos through reading and studying.

Difficulty with Hearing

All respondents were asked a specific question about difficulty with hearing; 374 (17.6 percent) indicated they did have difficulty hearing, while 1,584 (74.6 percent)indicated they did not. Another 164 (7.7 percent) did not respond to this item.

How does the frequency of use of closed captions differ for students who have no difficulty hearing compared to students who have difficulty hearing?

Table 4 shows the frequency of use of closed captions for students with and without difficulty hearing. Although one would expect that students who experience difficulty hearing will use closed captions at a higher frequency, our research found that respondents who do not have difficulty hearing also use closed captions with some frequency. Only a little less than 30 percent of student respondents who do not have difficulty hearing said that they never use closed captions.

Table 4. Frequency of closed caption use

Figure 4 shows the combined results of the sometimes, often, and always categories of frequency of use. Students who reported having no difficulty hearing indicated they use captions at a fairly high rate, with almost 50 percent using captions at least sometimes. As expected, student respondents with difficulty hearing reported using closed captions more frequently, with more than 68 percent indicating using captions at least sometimes.

Figure 4. Frequency of closed caption use

Frequent Users of Captions

To further explore perceptions of the helpfulness of captions, we conducted a subgroup analysis for the 678 students who indicated that they often or always use closed captions when they are available and who answered the disability questions. The responses of frequent caption users were analyzed by their reported disability status, and table 5 shows the results. Not surprisingly, the two groups show similar response patterns. Combining the moderately, very, and extremely helpful response choices, 98.8 percent of respondents reporting disabilities indicated that captions are at least moderately helpful, which is very close to the 97.4 percent of responses of students not reporting disabilities.

Table 5. Helpfulness of closed captions among frequent caption users

Conclusions

The results of this study show that more than half of students are using closed captions in their educational videos at least sometimes. Although one might expect students with disabilities to report using captions at much higher rates, this study shows that students not reporting disabilities use captions almost as frequently, with more than 50 percent using them sometimes or more often; this is only about 10 percentage points less than those reporting disabilities.

Among those who reported using closed captions, the vast majority find the captions to be at least moderately helpful. This rating varied somewhat by ability status - the proportion of students reporting disabilities who indicated that captions are extremely helpful was more than 10 percentage points higher than the proportion of students not reporting disabilities who said the same. Overall, ratings of the helpfulness of closed captions were similar for all students, regardless of whether they reported having a disability.

When asked why captions are helpful, respondents overall expressed strong agreement that captions help students focus, retain information, and overcome poor audio. Open-ended responses further illustrate that students find captions to be helpful learning aids. Captions help students with comprehension, accuracy, engagement, and the retention of information transmitted in course videos.

A closer look reveals that almost half of the students who reported having no difficulty hearing use closed captions sometimes or more often, compared to two-thirds of students reporting difficulty with hearing. Further, the majority of frequent caption users find closed captions to be considerably helpful, regardless of their ability status.

In this study we found that closed captions are being used by a wide range of students, perhaps wider than one might guess. The results suggest that we need to look further into how and why students of all ability statuses are using accommodations such as closed captions to help them learn. In the meantime, this research demonstrates that providing closed captions for video content not only benefits students with various disabilities but also has the potential to improve learning for students who report having no disability.

Mary Ellen Dello Stritto is assistant director of research, Ecampus, at Oregon State University.

Kathryn Linder is director of research, Ecampus, at Oregon State University.

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a rising tide: how closed captions can benefit all students

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A Rising Tide: How Closed Captions Can Benefit All Students

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Regardless of whether they have a disability of any kind, a majority of students use closed captions at least some of the time. Roughly 90 percent of all students who use closed captions find them at least moderately helpful for learning. Specific ways in which closed captions can aid learning include comprehension, accuracy, engagement, and retention.

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in Making Audio and Video Media Accessible

Captions (called "subtitles" in some areas) provide content to people who are Deaf and hard-of-hearing. Captions are a text version of the speech and non-speech audio information needed to understand the content. They are synchronized with the audio and usually shown in a media player when users turn them on.

This page helps you understand and create captions and subtitles.

Page Contents

Introduction

Who: Captions (also called "intralingual subtitles") provide content to people who are Deaf and others who cannot hear the audio. They are also used by people who process written information better than audio.

What: Captions are a text version of the speech and non-speech audio information needed to understand the content. They are displayed within the media player and are synchronized with the audio.

Most are "closed captions" that can be hidden or shown by people watching the video. They can be "open captions" that are always displayed and cannot be turned off.

The terms "captions" and "subtitles" are used for the same thing in different regions of the world. This resource uses:

Captions for the same language as the spoken audio.

Subtitles for spoken audio translated into another language.

Some regions use subtitles for both the same language as the audio and for the translation. Sometimes they are distinguished as intralingual subtitles (same language) and interlingual subtitles (different language).

Subtitles are implemented the same way as captions. Subtitles/interlingual subtitles are usually only the spoken audio (for people who can hear the audio but do not know the spoken language). They can be a translation of the caption content, including non-speech audio information.

Captions are needed for accessibility, whereas subtitles in other languages are not directly an accessibility accommodation.

Live captions are usually done by professional real-time captioners (also called Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) providers). Live captions can be done in-person or remotely. That is, the person doing the captioning/CART does not have to be at the same location as the live action; they can be doing the live captions by listening to the audio over a phone or Internet connection.

If you have live captions and you post a recording, you will probably need to do minor editing for accuracy.

This rest of this page addresses developing captions for pre-recorded media.

Caption files are used by some media players to provide interactive transcripts. Interactive transcripts highlight text phrases as they are spoken. Users can select text in the transcript and go to that point in the video. Some players provide interactive transcript functionality.

Notes

For optimum accessibility, provide a separate caption file of the audio description.
Captions and transcripts include the same text, so one can be used to develop the other.
Does My Media Need Captions?

This section tells you:

What is required in the WCAG standard at Level A, AA, and AAA. (WCAG is introduced in the Planning page of this resource.)

What is needed to meet user needs, beyond WCAG. If there are no "A"s, then it is not required in WCAG.

For pre-recorded:
Captions are useful for people who are hard of hearing to get the richness of listening to the audio and fill in what they don't hear well by reading the captions.
Captions are not required to meet WCAG. (Transcripts are at Level A.)

For live:
Captions are useful for people who are hard of hearing to get the richness of listening to the audio and fill in what they don't hear well by reading the captions.
Live text stream or accurate script of the audio available when live is in WCAG at Level AAA.

For pre-recorded and live:
Captions are not needed because there is no audio information.

Does the video have audio information that is needed to understand what the video is communicating?

If no (for example, it is just background music):
Captions are not needed because there is no important audio content. Consider informing users.

If yes:

For pre-recorded:
Captions are needed to provide the audio content to people who are Deaf or hard of hearing.
Captions arerequired in WCAG at Level A.

For live:
Captions are needed to provide the audio content to people who are Deaf or hard of hearing.
Captions arerequired in WCAG at Level AA.

WCAG excerpts with links to more information in "Understanding WCAG":

A 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded): Captions are provided for all prerecorded audio content in synchronized media...

AA 1.2.4 Captions (Live): Captions are provided for all live audio content in synchronized media.

Skills and Tools

Creating captions requires typing up the audio ("transcribing") and formatting it in a file with timestamps. Transcribing an audio file is fairly difficult and takes quite a bit of time for people who don't have the software and skill for it. The file format for captions are simple, yet it's tedious to add timestamps, especially without software or service for developing caption files.

Creating high-quality captions requires knowledge of which non-speech audio information should be included in the captions. It's more art than science - for example, it's not always clear which non-speech audio information to include and how to communicate it in text.

Even correcting an automatic caption files takes quite a bit of time for people who don't do it regularly.

However, people who have the software, skills, and experience in developing captions, can develop them much faster.

For these reasons, many organizations choose to outsource their captions.

Automatically-generated captions do not meet user needs or accessibility requirements, unless they are confirmed to be fully accurate. Usually they need significant editing.

There are tools that use speech recognition technology to turn a soundtrack into a timed caption file. For example, some common video websites provide automatic captions. However, often the automatic caption text is wrong and does not match the spoken audio - sometimes in ways that change the meaning (or are embarrassing). For example, missing just one word such as "not" can make the captions contradict the actual audio content.

Spoken audio:
"Broil on high for 4 to 5 minutes. You should not preheat the oven."
Automatic caption:
"Broil on high for 45 minutes. You should know to preheat the oven."

Automatic captions can be used as a starting point for developing accurate captions and transcripts.

The most common format for captions on the web is WebVTT: The Web Video Text Tracks Format.

WEBVTT 00:11.000 --> 00:13.000 <v Rajwinder Kaur>Welcome to the podcast. 00:13.000 --> 00:17.000 <v Shawn Henry>Thank you for this opportunity to share information about accessibility. 00:17.000 --> 00:20.000 <v Rajwinder>Would you start by telling us a little about your role at W3C? 00:20.000 --> 00:24.000 <v Shawn>I work within the Web Accessibility Initiative, W-A-I, pronounced "way".

Other caption formats are: Timed Text Markup Language ( TTML) and SRT.

Most people use software or services to help develop captions. There are several free captioning software programs and online services available.

Several free and fee-based tools create automatic captions that you can use as a starting point. For example, a common video website includes automatic captions and tools for you to edit the captions. You will need to edit automatic captions for accuracy.

If you already have transcription of the audio into text, there are free tools that will generate a captions file with timestamps. You will need to edit it for line breaks as described in another page of this resource, Transcribing Audio to Text: More on Captions.

Most caption-editing tools can export a plain text transcript.

The screen capture shows one tool for editing captions, in the area underneath the video.
Transcribing Audio to Text

For specific guidance on what to type up, see another page in this resource: Transcribing Audio to Text.

Please share your ideas, suggestions, or comments via e-mail to the publicly-archived list wai-eo-editors@w3.org or via GitHub.

There are options for authors to position and style captions. Support in browsers and other media players is inconsistent and sometimes unreliable. Most web videos just use the player's default presentation style, which is usually white characters in a black box.

Some media players enable users to set preferences for how and where captions are displayed, including text style, text size, colors, and position of the captions.
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in Making Audio and Video Media Accessible Captions (called "subtitles" in some areas) provide content to people who are Deaf and hard-of-hearing. Captions are a text version of the speech and non-speech audio information needed to understand the content. They are synchronized with the audio and usually shown in a media player when users turn them on.

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Read more about University of California, Berkeley's violation of Americans with Disabilities Act

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Read more about University of California, Berkeley's violation of Americans with Disabilities Act

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UC Berkeley Forced To Delete Content After Violating The American Disabilities Act | Impiger

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On March 1 st, 2017, UC Berkeley announced that it would be deleting all of its free and publicly available course publications in all formats. The decision was made in response to the Department of Justice's directive after the latter found that UC Berkeley's website was in violation of Title'II of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990.

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Take this quiz to find out what captioning laws apply to you

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Take this quiz to find out what captioning laws apply to you

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Web Accessibility laws and Closed Captioning by Industry

Most laws affect one of the following industries:

K-12 School

Higher Education

Online Learning or Continuing Education

Government

Film & TV Producer

Online Video

Religious Broadcaster

Private Company

K-12 Schools

This includes both public and private schools.

Federal laws in the United States require public and private K-12 schools to provide captioning to students. However, there is some variation on which laws apply to public and private K-12 schools. Public schools must abide by Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Americans with Disabilities Act Title II, Section 504 and Section 508 (if the school receives federal funding through the Assistive Technology Act), and state laws. Private schools must comply with the ADA Title III, Section 504 (if the school receives federal funding), and state laws. If a private K-12 school receives state funding that is provided from federal funding through the Assistive Technology Act, then that private school must also comply with Section 508.

Helpful resources for K-12 schools:

Higher Education

This includes both public and private schools.

Federal laws in the United States, like the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA, require institutions of higher education to caption their content. Several institutions of higher education have been sued for failing to caption their content and for having inaccurate captions.

Note: Under the Rehabilitation Act, Section 504 and Section 508 apply to higher education. If a private institution receives federal funding, they must comply with Section 504 and, depending on the grant requirements they receive, they must also comply with Section 508.

State laws may also require institutions has to caption.

Captioning laws apply to lecture capture videos, videos shown in class, public-facing videos, and online courses. If a school receives an accommodation request, they must also provide captioning.

Helpful resources for higher education:

Federal laws in the United States, like the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), require online learning institutions to caption their content.

Under the ADA, Title III states the places of public accommodation must not discriminate against people with disabilities.

Since the ADA was written before the proliferation of the internet, it does not specifically mention websites. However, numerous court cases involving the ADA have agreed that websites are places of public accommodation and therefore should be accessible.

Online learning or continuing education institutions that receive federal funding must also comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Lastly, online learning institutions may also be required to comply with Section 508 if the state they are located in has a "mini 508" clause requiring compliance with WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA.

Helpful resources for online learning:

Federal laws in the United States, like the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA, require government entities to caption their content.

Section 504 and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act required government entities to make their content accessible.

Note: Section 508 applies specifically to the federal government, but if a state receives federal funding or has a "mini 508" law in place then state governments must also comply.

Title II of the ADA relates to web accessibility for state and local entities. Title II mandates that public entities cannot refuse to accommodate people with disabilities and must provide the necessary aids for such individuals to have equal access.

Helpful resources for Government:

Federal laws in the United States, like FCC, CVAA, and ADA, require producers and distributors of video content to caption.

Any content broadcast on television must be captioned. The FCC has certain captioning standards that broadcasters must comply with including accuracy and unobstructed placement. Live broadcasted content must also be captioned.

Under the CVAA, any content that was previously published on television must be captioned when published online. This also applies to video clips and montages.

Streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, must caption all content that was previously aired on television.

Title III of the ADA relates to private entities. Under the ADA, online streaming companies must also caption original content, even if it never appeared on television (like Netflix's Stranger Things).

Organizations like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon have all been sued under the ADA for failing to caption their content.

Helpful resources for film & TV producers:

If an online video producer creates content that previously aired on television and/or produces video clips or mashups of full-length programs that previously aired on television, then they are required to caption them under the FCC and CVAA.

If your video content has never aired on television (like a vlog on YouTube), then the CVAA does not apply to you.

Helpful resources for online videos:

Federal laws in the United States, like the Rehabilitation Act, FCC, and CVAA, require religious broadcasters to caption their video.

Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, religious broadcasters are required to make their content accessible if they receive financial assistance from the federal government. Financial assistance includes both monetary funds and non-monetary funds like donation items, services, or free or discounted use of government space or property.

Under the FCC, any content that is broadcasted on television must be captioned - whether recorded or live content. If that content is then published online, then the religious institution is also required to provide captions.

State laws may also affect religious broadcasters, so it's important to familiarize yourself with your state's requirements.

Helpful resources for religious broadcasters:

The ADA requires private companies to caption their content. This includes public-facing videos, training videos, video tutorials, and video used for internal communications.

In 2014, FedEx was sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commision (EEOC) for violating the ADA by failing to caption their company training videos.

Company training videos must be accessible as required under the Americans with Disabilities Act Title I and Title II. Title I of the ADA prohibits employers and government agencies from discriminating against qualified individuals on the basis of a disability. Title II mandates that public entities cannot refuse to accommodate people with disabilities and must provide the necessary aids for such individuals to have equal access.

Helpful resources for private companies:

If no laws apply, should you still caption?

It's always best practice to make your content accessible. Many people who do not have a disability actually benefit from web accessibility features like captions.

Captions have been proven to improve brand recall, verbal memory, and behavioral intent.

Captions also give your viewers the flexibility to view your videos when they don't have headphones or can't turn the volume up.

Most importantly though, captions make your content accessible.

You never know who is watching your videos. As a result, it's best practice to always make your videos accessible for everyone.

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Quiz: What Captioning Laws Apply to You?

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Most laws affect one of the following industries: K-12 School Higher Education Online Learning or Continuing Education Government Film & TV Producer Online Video Religious Broadcaster Private Company K-12 Schools This includes both public and private schools. Federal laws in the United States require public and private K-12 schools to provide captioning to students.

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Designrr - Create eBooks, Kindle books, Leadmagnets, Flipbooks and Blog posts from your content in 2 minutes

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Everyone is focusing on video marketing. The demand is growing, 85% of all internet users in the United States watched online video content ( Statista). And Wyzowl 2019 report shows that 87% of marketing professionals use video as a marketing tool. So, before you hit the upload button, take into consideration as to why you need to transcribe your videos.

What's the purpose of transcribing your video to text?

Maybe you're asking why you would want to transcribe your video? You're probably interested in video content marketing because you know the power of video marketing. Here are some video marketing statistics that you may not know:

1. Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text. (Insivia)

2. Video increases organic search traffic on a website by 157%. (Conversion XL)

3. Video marketers get 66% more qualified leads per year. (Optinmonster)

Apart from creating video and focusing on video marketing with just video alone, there are numerous benefits and requirements regarding how you post your video. Transcription software needs to be part of your video marketing efforts to truly reap the benefits.

In fact, if your video blog has captions you'll have higher engagement rates. Videos with captions have 40% more views and the chances of a viewer watching your entire video increases by 80%.

Another fact, here's a study from Instapages regarding how effective captioning really is:

Average total view time was 5% higher on the variation with captions, and it was watched by 3% more viewers.

The average reach of the captioned video was 16% higher than the one without.

Reactions to the video were also higher on the version with captions, by more than 17% on average.

Average shares dropped when captions were removed, by nearly 15%.

Average video views were a little lower without captions, by about 4% - but 10-second video views were significantly lower - nearly 18%.

CTA clicks fell by 26% when captions were removed.

Who benefits from using video transcription software?

Here's some content you need to consider for transcription:

Live Talks

Presentations,

Events

Conferences

Question and answer sessions

Public relation stunts

Radio and Television (Required)

Commercial advertisements

Full television or radio presentations

The appearances on radio or television presentations

Podcasts

Complete podcasts

The guest/interviews on your podcasts

Video/Audio Music

Others include;

How-to guides/Explainer

Landing page videos

Product Reviews

Case Studies/ Testimonials

Tutorials

Documentaries

Interviews

Webinars

Yep, pretty much any and all types of video can benefit from video transcription. Better yet, let's go deeper with our 9 reasons why:

1. Prepare for the future of video marketing

Video marketing is growing. 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool - up from 63% over the last year. ( Hubspot). And by 2021, Cisco says, video will represent 82% of all internet traffic.

Take a step back and let's really look at the numbers, feels like there's something missing here.

Oh yes! let's not forget the others...

72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. ( HubSpot) What about the 28%?

59% of executives say they would rather watch a video than reading text. ( Wordstream). What about the 41%?

65% of people use YouTube to help them solve a problem. ( Google) That's 35% of the people being left out.

Do you see where I am going with this? If video marketing is the way to go, what about voice search?

65% of 25-49-year-olds speak to their voice-enabled devices at least once per day ( PwC).

Half of all online searches will be voice searches by 2020. ( ComScore). That's half of 3.5 billion of Google searches which are made every day. ( Internet Live Stats).

How will you rank for your videos for voice search?

62% of businesses haven't yet optimized for voice search. With video marketing on the rise, more and more videos are being uploaded. You'll be competing with millions of other videos and Google will update their algorithm to enhance the user search experience. They recently announced how you can add structured data to your how-to article to tell Google that your article is a how-to article.

By 2020 there will be close to 1 million minutes of video crossing the internet per second. ( Cisco).

Sounds familiar? Do people still buy real books? Do people still search using their desktop computers? Use Google search? Read? Information? While everyone is trying to focus on the future, you'll want to future proof your marketing efforts as well. Without properly setting up for the future, you'll be bundled up with the rest of the crowd. So, ask yourself this, how can you stand out as being the best?

2. Increased SEO traffic

SEO is the way you can future proof your video marketing efforts. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, and that's with 3.5 billion searches every day.

That's important if you want your video to shine across all search engines, whether it be on YouTube, Vimeo, Google Podcast, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Search, Yahoo, and Bing. This is crucial since a staggering 71.33% of browsers don't go beyond the coveted first page of search tool results.

The text transcription of any published audio/video like YouTube or Podcast helps to boost your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. It gives the context of what the video is. Whether it be uploading to your own site's blog, or providing more context using transcript or in the description section. The more content you provide, the more search engine crawlers can help define your videos better.

The crawling of images, audio, or video data cannot be done the same way search tools crawl text contents. Images are indexed based on the surrounding content, alt text, and titles. Video and audio is indexed and ranked based on the title, meta description, schema structured data and a brief description.

There is no assurance that your content will read or understood if you limit the amount of data search engine crawlers can crawl for that specific content or page.

Non-text materials, including videos, are not supposed to be used to present content that you wish to be used for indexing. Without text transcription, and in a similar case with alt text, search engines would have less data where they can infer what you are talking about. Here is a direct quote from Google's very own Gary Illyes Twitter account:

Imo if the text around the image is relevant, leaving the alt attributes blank is sorta ok. Search engines would absolutely have less data from where they can infer what the image is about so at least in some cases that might have significant impact on Google Images traffic.

- Gary "鯨理" Illyes (@methode) May 29, 2019

7 out of 10 marketing professionals are optimizing video for SEO.

A study with This American Life (TAL) proved that adding transcripts boosts SEO. Search engines can't watch videos, but adding transcripts allows search engines to crawl the full text of your audio or video content so that is can be properly indexed. The number of unique visitors who discovered TAL through organic search results increased by 6.68%.

They also saw a 3.89% increase in inbound links directly attributable to the transcript pages. A separate study by Discovery Digital Networks showed that YouTube videos with captions had 13.48% more views in the first two weeks and 7.32% more lifetime views, as compared to videos without captions. Long transcripts can be paginated and optimized for specific keywords to further optimize search rank.

Designrr can do this automatically by extracting screengrabs from the video and inserting them into your transcript at relevant points.

Related: 3 Uber sites to share your ebook for traffic and SEO

How do you get more leads and traffic to your business? Transcribing your video content to text enables you to use the same content for different purposes, for example, creating a high converting lead magnet, that can help drive more traffic to your site and grow your email list.

Research from Zazzle Media reveals that 60% of people find it hard to produce content consistently.

The process of coming up with quality videos consumes a lot of time, but the use of video transcription software enables you to use the content for other purposes such as:

Ebook, Word or PDF Downloadable content

Email marketing

Infographics

Social network posts

Here's a nice breakdown of what content types produce the highest conversion rates by Vennage:

And if you want people to share your content type, here are average stats based on what you create:

OKDork's data shows blog posts and infographics are among the most shared content online.

This is what we call content upgrades. The possibility of creating different types of content upgrades to help generate leads, which translate into more traffic.

We've written an article regarding the different types of lead magnets you should be using for your business. Or learn how to create a stunning lead magnet with Designrr.

4. Global outreach through the ease of translation to other languages

Reach a 10x larger audience by translating your transcription. In the year 2018 alone, there were about 1 million international students enrolled in the U.S. For those who are not native speakers of the English language, transcription comes in handy for the ease understanding of lectures, web-based seminars among other video-based study materials.

Getting your video content transcribed is the first step in creating subtitles in foreign languages. In today's global world, the Internet is at the center of it all. A whopping 80% of YouTube views coming from outside the US and eight of the top 10 countries with the most YouTube users are non-English speaking countries.

5. It's all about options and user preferences

85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound. With regards to time, locality, or even personal preferences, not every visitor is bound to watch or listen to your video contents on every visit. The surrounding can be noisy, maybe they forgot their headset, or they just prefer written to video materials.

However, people on a tight schedule might be in urgent need of particular information; probably, there is no sufficient time to listen to a 30 minutes-video, maybe they're using playback speed of 1.5x or a faster speed reader. Therefore, transcription enables your visitors to have convenient and reliable access to your content.

Any loud background noise associated with your video, mumbling, or strong accents might make the dialogue in your video hard to understand. Captions can help clear up any confusion in what people are saying.

But situations do occur and you've recorded an amazing content and don't have time to re-record or salvage it. You can warn your viewers ahead of time and provide an explanation with a caption so the transition and the noise don't throw people off.

It's your job to make sure people continue watching your videos or at least be engaged in other ways. Creating a poorly quality transcript or caption can lead to:

Spoiling the user experience and get thrown off with the words, driving their attention away

Violate FCC rules regarding caption quality and accuracy

Damage you or your brand as providing low-quality content and lose trust, credibility or rapport.

Lower your engagement and over ROI for your video.

Taking the time to accurately transcribing can be a benefit to the reason why you need it.

6. Helps to enhance your visitors' experience which increases your content engagement

The transcription content helps to improve the general experience of the visitors to your site or your YouTube or Podcast platform. Besides, the transcript helps the audience in finding a section of the audio content they would wish to listen once more.

You can upload your transcript to your publishing platform or provide a link to your website with the transcript.

Blog posts incorporating video attract 3x as many inbound links as blog posts without video.

Where both video and text are available on the same page, 72% of people would rather use video to learn about a product or service ( Wyzowl).

Brain Rules reports that people are more likely to remember information when they also see a relevant image at the same time. Provide audio to text transcriptions to help their retention and whatever situation, or preferences the user might have, you'll want to accommodate all and not just a few.

Using a video transcription like Designrr you can create transcription with images, we call these Dynamic Transcripts:

When you want to create an ebook or publish your transcript on your blog, you don't have to make it look boring or plain. With Dynamic Transcripts, we gather snippets of the actual video footage to help bring the text to life.

7. Increase the time visitors spend on your web page

Videos with subtitles lengthen the time spend viewing by over 12% and on average, they are 91% watched to the end. That ensures they stay longer on your site consuming the content; and by so doing, it heightens the chances of engaging with the rest of your materials or adverts.

The loading of video contents consumes a lot of data and load time compared to text contents. There's a direct correlation between page speed and bounce rate. As page speed slows, bounce rates climb.

Therefore, the availability of transcripts enables visitors to engage with your content if your websites load time is not fully optimized or if their internet connection is slow.

Additionally, if the video content takes longer to load, then it is much easier for them to click the close button because of the frustration.

8. Enables the ease of your site's accessibility to the disabled

According to the World Health Organization, more than 466 million people in the world have disabling hearing loss.

The hearing-impaired have better chances of engaging your content due to the transcription of audio to text. Lack of transcripts of your video contents can lead you to miss out on the opportunity of reaching the vast market of those who are hearing-impaired but have the potential of consuming your content. You need to note that 71% of the disabled is bound to leave your site if found inaccessible immediately.

You can take your transcription to another level and include captions in the video. That gives the hearing-impaired the options of consuming the content the way it is or watching the video as they read the embedded text.

There are several anti-discrimination laws that were enacted to protect the rights of people with disabilities to access the same resources as the rest of the population. Some of those laws require that videos include closed captions so that they are fully accessible. Closed captioning standards for television and media broadcasts in the US are strictly regulated by the FCC, like the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA)

Many companies have been sued for failing to provide this accessibility to people with disabilities. Closed captioning requirements are written directly into Section 508, and many states in the United States have "mini 508" laws as well.

9. Video transcription software versus manual transcription

One of the most important parts of transcribing is to provide a transcript with a timestamp so you can upload it to your video platform like YouTube. Transcribing your video saves you both time and money.

Unlike the use of manual transcription, which can take hours to do, it's better to automate your transcription so that someone can focus on editing the transcript versus transcribing the whole content altogether.

Traditionally voice to text has been done by teams of human transcribers who charge rates of $3 or $4 per minute, which is an average of 2.35 minutes of transcribing for 1 minute of talking. And that's an average time for the professional transcriber, whereas, It can take 5-10 times the duration of a video to caption it on your own. Most transcription software is done within minutes, with an average cost .10-.25 cents per minute.

Transcription software isn't perfect, it might convert your speech to text that might not make any sense. For example, you might have said, "avoid" but the software might translate it as "a void". We're not saying you should use the software alone, but spending your time and money wisely by focusing on providing a better experience for your users.

If you're repurposing your video for a comprehensive guide, you might want to use your transcription and convert it for more reader-friendly content.

Spend less time transcribing than actually working on the task at hand.

In conclusion

There were more than 9 reasons why you would benefit from transcribing your video to text. Choosing the right transcription software is important. Same as buying a computer, which computer can convert your 4k video the fastest? What type of external hard drive makes sense? What mic provides the best quality. What transcription software can help the most?

Transcribing is never an easy task and is prone to errors. Still, you now know the benefits of transcribing your video and thankfully, video transcription software can help

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9 Reasons Why You Need Video-to-text Transcription Software | Designrr

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Everyone is focusing on video marketing. The demand is growing, 85% of all internet users in the United States watched online video content ( Statista). And Wyzowl 2019 report shows that 87% of marketing professionals use video as a marketing tool.

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Summary Example of bad automatic captions (that cause a fire) Help improve this page

in Making Audio and Video Media Accessible

This page provides guidance on transcribing audio to text for captions and transcripts, for those who will do it yourself (DIY).

Page Contents

Introduction

Good transcription requires knowledge of which non-speech audio information should be included in the transcription. It's more art than science - for example, it's not always clear which non-speech audio information to include and how to communicate it in text.

If you have the resources to hire professionals to do your transcribing, that is best. If you don't, please don't be deterred from providing transcripts or captions. This page helps you do it yourself (DIY).

In some cases, there is already text available in a script. You'll probably need to make some minor edits so it's accurate with the final audio content.

How to Transcribe

You can just listen to the audio and type it up. That's usually pretty tedious because you have to stop and restart the audio a lot. There is software that can help by slowing down the audio and providing easy pause buttons.

You can start with an automatically-generated text file. There's lots of software and services that provide speech-to-text. These have various levels of accuracy. Often the text does not match the spoken audio - and in ways that change the meaning (or are embarrassing). For example, missing just one word such as "not" can make the captions contradict the actual audio content.

Spoken text:
"Broil on high for 4 to 5 minutes. You should not preheat the oven."
Automatic caption:
"Broil on high for 45 minutes. You should know to preheat the oven."

Plan to spend time correcting automatically-generated transcription.

More details on options and tools for transcribing are in: Transcripts on the Web, How to get or make transcripts .

A little about captioning tools is in the Captions/Subtitles page of this resource: Captioning Tools.

What to Transcribe

Generally, you transcribe all speech and relevant non-speech sound (such as: baby cries, fireworks going off, horse hoofs approaching). Keep in mind that the main purpose is to provide the information that you hear to people who cannot hear the audio. That will help you know which sounds to transcribe, and which are not needed. The following are common practices, not requirements.

Basics

Identify the speakers as relevant. Often it is best to use the full name the first time and single name throughout - either first/given or last/family depending on the formality.

You can include relevant information about the speech. For example:
( between gritted teeth ):
I hate this computer!

Put non-speech sounds in parentheses, lowercase, italics, with a space before and after. For example:
( computer crashing into bits and parts sliding across the floor )

When a speaker is off-screen, you can put their speech in italics. For example:
Jose: What was that awful noise?
Zoe: You don't want to know.
Jose: Well, I'm coming to find out.

Only include background music if it's important to understand the content of the video. Use objective descriptions that indicate the mood; avoid subjective words, such as "beautiful." If the words in the music are important, add a musical note to the beginning and end of each caption. Put music information in italics. For example:
♪ scary music, JAWS theme ♪

Do not emphasize a word using all capital letters, except to indicate yelling. For example:
Jose: YOU KILLED MY NEW LAPTOP!

Transcribe Accurately and Honestly

Do not change or adapt or add to the text. Transcribe what is said accurately.

For example, it is usually not appropriate to correct grammar or other mistakes.

Do not censor. For example, if objectionable words are said, include those in the captions. If the audio is edited to obscure a phrase (e.g., "bleeped" audio), reflect that in the captions, e.g., -bleep-

Do not provide additional clarifying information in the captions. (You can provide some in the transcript as appropriate.)

Include the appropriate level of detail:

For some content, such as legal depositions, transcribe everything verbatim, including things like "um", "ah", and repeated phrases.

For most web content, it is acceptable to leave out non-substantive text to make the captions easier to process - while adhering to the tips above. For example, if the speaker says:
I just got so frustrated (cough, cough) sorry - uhhh what was I saying?..., oh yea - I got so frustrated with my computer.
You can caption:
I just got so frustrated with my computer.

If there is speech that is not at all relevant, indicate that it has been excluded from the captions. For example:
[participants discuss the weather while the presenter reboots his computer]

If you cannot understand what is said, transcribe:
[unintelligible]

For captions:

Captions are one or two lines. Generally is is best to keep them under 32 characters per line.

Put a new sentence on a new line.

If you need to break a sentence into multiple segments, break it at a logical phrase.

Captions also include the time that each phrase will be displayed. Most people use tools to develop and refine captions.

Learn more about captions in another page of this resource: Captions/Subtitles.

More on Transcripts

Learn more about transcripts in another page of this resource: Transcripts.

Please share your ideas, suggestions, or comments via e-mail to the publicly-archived list wai-eo-editors@w3.org or via GitHub.

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Summary Example of bad automatic captions (that cause a fire) Help improve this page in Making Audio and Video Media Accessible This page provides guidance on transcribing audio to text for captions and transcripts, for those who will do it yourself (DIY).