Creating Accessible Videos: Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hi everyone, in this video you'll learn how inaccessible video content that also has audio affects users. Then we'll demo the easiest way to create accessible videos with audio, so they have captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions. You can check out the article version of this content in the description below. Let's get started. When videos with audio are inaccessible, users with visual and auditory disabilities won't be able to access it. They either won't see the on-screen content or won't hear the narration. That's why captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions are so important. Captions are synchronized text of the audio and help users with auditory and cognitive disabilities. Transcripts are the non-synchronized text of the audio that can also include descriptions of what's on screen. They can help everyone. Lastly, audio descriptions are narration that describes what's on screen, which helps users with visual disabilities. We know creating captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions for every video sounds like a lot, so we're going to walk you through the easiest way to create accessible videos with audio. Before we begin, WCAG AA Compliance only requires captions and an audio description, but we suggest also including a transcript because it is so easy to make after creating captions, and like we saw earlier, it helps everyone. Okay, let's get started. First, create a script that already includes the visual description of what's happening on screen. Then, you won't need any additional files to create an audio description version of your video. Here's an example of what including the visual description would sound like. I would not say, click here and then click here. Instead, I would say, in the top navigation, select your user profile. Then click sign out. Once you start thinking this way, you'll find including the audio description in the narration can be done for most videos. Second, after creating your video, upload it to YouTube to use their automatic captions. Even if you don't use YouTube as your media player, you can edit and then download the captions to use somewhere else. It can take a little while for the automatic captioning to finish, but once it is, you'll see it by going to Your Videos, selecting the video, and then selecting Subtitles. Now edit the subtitles to make sure they're accurate. Once they are correct, select Publish. At this point, your video has an audio description integrated into the narration, and it has captions. Now we just need a transcript, which is easy since you already have the captions. Let's make the transcript. On that same Subtitles page in YouTube, hover over the subtitle and select the ellipses to open the dropdown. Then select Download and .vtt. This will download a text file of your captions. The .vtt file should open in your computer's text editor. You can copy and paste this to another program. There are timestamps, so remove those and make any formatting changes like making paragraphs or adding headings. Now you have your transcript to link to. You now have accessible video content that also has audio, because it has captions, a transcript, and an audio description.