Media everyone can use.
CAPTIONS
Text of the spoken content, synchronised with the video.
Required for deaf and hard of hearing viewers, and useful for anyone in a noisy place or watching without sound.
Most people watch video without sound on a phone, so captions benefit almost everyone.
AUTOMATIC CAPTIONS
Video platforms generate them automatically. They are approximate and frequently wrong, particularly with accents and technical terms.
Review and correct them. An uncorrected automatic caption can be worse than none.
TRANSCRIPTS
The full text, separately from the video.
Useful for people who prefer reading, searchable by search engines, and accessible to screen reader users.
For a short video, a transcript is quick to produce and worth doing.
AUDIO DESCRIPTION
Narration describing important visual content for blind viewers.
Needed where the video conveys information visually that is not spoken.
CONTROLS
Video players must be keyboard accessible, with controls that can be reached and operated.
AUTOPLAY
Avoid it, particularly with sound. It interferes with screen readers and is disorienting.
