Make Your Videos More Accessible

Written By Nathan wanzek

We’re all familiar with the ways in which our physical world has become more accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities: ramps on (and in) buildings, audio signals on pedestrian crossings, sign language interpreters at concerts and speeches, and more.

Video content should be no exception to the increasing focus on accessibility, but it can be difficult to know where to start.

At DCA, we have made a commitment to making the video content we create as accessible as possible, and we’d love to share some tips to help you do the same with yours.  

Let’s start with the accessibility topic we’re most familiar with: subtitles.

Subtitles

For viewers who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, subtitles are critical in nearly every video.  They’ve become commonplace, and many video players such as YouTube will even generate captions automatically.  However, auto-generated subtitles are often inaccurate, especially when the voiceover contains brand names or scientific terminology.  It’s worth the extra effort to make sure your subtitles are correct, capture non-speech sounds like music and sound effects, identify different speakers, and are timed correctly with the voiceover.

Audio descriptions

For people with visual impairments, alt-text or recorded audio descriptions make images and videos much more accessible.  For still images and photos, all that’s needed is to add a caption with a description of the image.  As an example, for this photo:


we would add this caption:

“Image description: Joseph, DCA’s director of photography, stands at the edge of a vineyard holding a camera.  A hill with a burn scar is visible in the background.  Joseph is a white man with dark brown hair and black clothing.  His back is turned.”

Not every detail needs to be described, but it’s essential to include those that are relevant to the story being told.  Any assistive software that reads text aloud will then include that caption as part of the article or page being read.

Videos are more nuanced.  Sometimes, the voiceover or dialogue is enough to convey what is happening visually (and is worth considering when writing a script).  If someone new to the content listens to the audio and they can follow the story, no supplemental description is necessary.  If that’s not the case, consider creating a second version of your video with pauses to accommodate more narration that describes the visual information.  Some media players support playing a separate, timed, text-to-speech or audio file that adds descriptions, but this is by no means universal.

Transcripts

It may seem that a video with subtitles wouldn’t also need a complete transcript, but people with cognitive or neurodivergent differences, or non-native speakers of the language used in the video, may not read the subtitles at the same rate they are displayed while the video plays.  An easy-to-find, accurate transcript that is structured with headings and includes non-voiceover information like visual descriptions, sound effects, and music will make your video that much more accessible.

Fonts

Font choice and sizing can make a big difference for people with low vision or cognitive differences such as dyslexia.  It’s a good practice to keep any onscreen text short enough that its size can be as large as possible.  Many companies have their own required font (which hopefully is accessible), but if you have options, we suggest a simple sans-serif font in which the characters are easy to distinguish from each other.  Helvetica, Arial, Calibri, OpenSans, Tiresias, and Verdana are all solid choices.

Colors

Color accessibility is a fairly new topic within visual design, but an important one; color vision deficiencies being a common issue.  Too many colors, especially bright ones, in the same frame can also be distracting.  When color-coding important information, consider breaking it up into different scenes if it requires a lot of different shades, adding a distinctive shape or pattern to further distinguish elements from each other. Also consider using color-blind-safe colors.  This Adobe website allows you to check whether any colors within a five-color palette are in conflict with each other.

A full color wheel is shown with five shades highlighted on it. Those colors are shown below in a set of swatches along with their hex codes. Text appears near the color wheel stating “No conflicts found. Swatches are color blind safe.

As with fonts, your organization’s branding guidelines may dictate the use of specific shades, but any effort you can make to keep your colors accessible while staying within brand restrictions will be helpful.

Flashing lights or other flashing visual elements

It can be tempting to emphasize important information by making text flash onscreen, or adding another flashing element or light.  This should be avoided. For some people, lights that flash more than a few times a second can trigger a seizure or a migraine.  For many more people, the flashing can distract from your messaging.  We recommend not using any flashing elements.  There are several other visual treatments we can help you choose from to make important information stand out.

Wrapping up

While this list of topics is not comprehensive (and more ways we can add accessibility to our content become apparent every day), it’s a great place to start.  Together, we can work to make your video content as accessible as it can be.  Contact us at dca@dcasf.com to get started.

Nathan wanzek
Previous

Customer Testimonials
Next

Commitment to DEIRA