1.3 Until user agents can automatically read aloud the text equivalent of a visual track, provide auditory description of the important information
Checkpoint
1.3 Until user agents can automatically read aloud the text equivalent of a visual track, provide auditory description of the important information of the visual track of a multimedia presentation.
Provide auditory descriptions of visual multimedia
This guideline relates to video or multimedia where there is visual information that is not available to all users, e.g. background scenery would not be available to someone who is blind. The guideline states that such information should be provided as an audio track rather than just a text caption.
This is an interim guideline as the expectation is that future web clients will be able to use text transcripts of visual information and automatically produce an audio version.
The creation of video and video captions is a specialist skill and therefore it is beyond the scope of this foundation training module.
Reading material
- Building Accessible Websites by Joe Clark: Chapter on Multimedia
- Web Aim tutorial: captioning Quicktime video
- National Centre for Accessible Media (NCAM): Creating Captions for Rich Media