Overview
The ADA Title II rule for digital accessibility requires that all UW web content meet accessibility standards and includes accessibility requirements for videos (e.g., captions for people who are unable to hear the audio; audio description for people who are unable to see the video).
Making UW videos accessible
Review your videos and clean house
- If videos are no longer needed, remove them.
- If videos are needed purely for historical purposes, they may qualify as an “archive” under the ADA rule. Consult the Archived Web Content page from the UW Civil Rights Compliance Office for guidance. If any of your videos qualify as “archives”, they will need to be properly identified as an “archive” by appending “(ARCHIVE)” to the video title.
Review and edit automated captions
Recent improvements of AI can be observed in the quality of automatic captioning. However, AI captions still have limitations and all captions should be reviewed for accuracy and edited if needed.
In particular, automatic captions may not include the names of speakers. This is especially important for content that includes multiple speakers. Each speaker should be identified in square brackets each time there is a change in speakers. For example:
[Robert Jones] We are at a time of rapid and profound change.
In YouTube, captions can be edited using the YouTube Caption Editor. For instructions, see Edit or remove captions in the YouTube Help Center.
Links to techniques for uploading and editing captions on other platforms are available on our Captions page.
Prioritize videos for captioning and audio description
UW-IT Accessible Technology Services (ATS) has partnered with 3Play Media to improve the accessibility of UW videos, focusing initially on public-facing videos on YouTube.
They are unable to caption all UW videos, so ask that you prioritize videos, and submit only those that are the highest priority (e.g., based on views or criticality of their content).
Audio description is a narration track that verbally describes key visual content that is not accessible via audio alone.
To request captioning or audio description through this service, please complete the Captioning and Audio Description Service Application.