Accessibility forms part of UCL’s e-resources baseline. In order for videos to be accessible to everyone, they should include video transcripts, captioning, and visual descriptions where possible.
See ISD's webpage about creating accessible content for lecturecast and other media.
A comprehensive guide is available from W3C about making audio and video content accessible.
- Videos should ideally include audio voiceover as well as Closed Captions.
- Think about the experience someone would have if they couldn’t see or couldn’t hear and ensure the video still gets the message across. For example the audio might want to describe what’s on the screen where it is necessary information, e.g. instead of instructing the viewer to ‘click here’, instead say ‘click on the xxx button’.
- ‘Closed’ captions, where the viewer can choose whether to have them displayed or not, are the preferred form of captions. ‘Burned’ or ‘open’ captions are fixed as part of the video file and cannot be turned on and off; these are also acceptable.
- At the very least a video should be accompanied by a transcript, but a transcript is not necessary where there are captions.
- Ensure you check your captions for accuracy. Captions which have not been checked or contain errors are not compliant with accessibility regulations.
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