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  • When we`re talking about making video content accessible, there are actually two pieces.

  • The more commonly understood piece is captions: that`s where we`re trying to make sure that

  • the audio content of the video is accessible to people who cannot hear. That means that

  • all dialog and important sounds are turned into a written caption or a written transcript

  • that is then time-synced to the video. It`s also valuable that - when adding the caption

  • - that you also make the pure transcript, in a text format, available. While this is

  • not a technical requirement - to make the transcript by itself accessible and available

  • to people – I would highly recommend it. If you`ve gone to the effort to add a time-sync

  • caption to your video that means that you have a transcript file available. Why is the

  • transcript file useful? Because for people who may need to slow down and read that content

  • or to reread it or who are easily distracted by, perhaps, what`s happening visually on

  • the screen; they can focus on that text transcript and sometimes get better access to the information.

  • So I think of it as a double bonus. The additional piece that a lot of people are not aware of

  • for making video content accessible is calledaudio description,” and this accessibility

  • is for a whole different type of user disability; and that is for people who cannot see. What

  • we`re trying to do is describe what is important happening visually in the video to make sure

  • that they get all that content. In the example of this video, you wouldn`t need very much

  • audio description because what we`re dealing with here is a video of me talking directly

  • to the camera and there`s nothing critical being shown. There`s no graph, there`s no

  • demonstration where I`m saying, “And look here, you can obviously see what`s occurring

  • in this demo.” If there were that type of element happening, you would need an audio

  • description. My best way of describing audio description is: imagine you`re at a movie

  • and you`re blind. Imagine you`re in a horror movie, and you`re blind, and you`re only listening

  • to the dialog. And, for those who can see, there`s a shadow on the wall of someone holding

  • a gun. This is a really important visual element that would need to be audio described to the user.

When we`re talking about making video content accessible, there are actually two pieces.

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