Do ALL videos need to be captioned?

Yes. Accessibility laws require all users, regardless of disability, to have a comparable experience from all media, including videos (both live broadcasts and recorded). For a video to be accessible to a viewer, the person watching it must be able to understand what is happening in both the visual and audio portions of the video.

Accessible videos have three main parts:

  1. Captions: The audio parts of your video appear as text at the appropriate time and give access to people who are hearing impaired or deaf. This also includes notations where there is music or other non-verbal sound.
    • If the video has no audio / is silent then that should be indicated as well.
  2. An audio description: A description of a video’s visual elements, gives access to people who are blind or visually impaired. Similar to alt-text for an image. Learn more about Audio Description.
  3. A compliant video player: Ensures a person who requires keyboard navigation or an assistive device can navigate the window where the video plays (that is, the video player). UMass Lowell uses Brightcove and Ensemble as its video players. Be advised that YouTube video is not compliant.

All videos posted on the UMass Lowell website (including course materials), regardless of origin, need to comply with these standards. The university has two ways to caption videos depending on the video's length and purpose:

  1. If the video is less than five minutes long and is being used for promotional or marketing purposes, please file a Web Services ticket and include the original video file.
  2. If the video is longer than five minutes or is being used in course materials or informational purposes (for example: lecture, panel), please contact Information Technology (IT) by submitting a I.T. help ticket.

What Is Audio Description?

Audio Description (AD) provides a succinct and precise account of visual information to people who are blind or have low vision. AD can be used to describe all sorts of media, both live and recorded. Example: Frozen Trailer with AD.​

  • For live events narrated in real time it is usually transmitted and heard through an earpiece receiver.​
  • For recorded video related content it is usually added as a separate narration track.​

Impact: ​

  • 1.1 billion people live with vision loss worldwide.​
  • Only about 2% of people are born completely blind. That means most have a visual frame of reference.

Types of Audio Description​

  1. Standard / Inline – inserts narration into natural pauses in a video and does not affect the runtime of the original video.
  2. Extended – the video and audio are stopped, audio descriptions are inserted, and then the video and audio resume. This allows for detailed narration and extends the run time of the video.
  3. Text - written, descriptive transcripts that provide access to visual information read by a screen reader. These include descriptions of on-screen actions, characters, scene changes, and text. Like alt-text for a video.

Note: you can lessen the need for AD by planning ahead and building dialogue or voiceover into the video before recording it (for example: have speakers introduce themselves before they talk). ​

Audio Only Recordings

For audio only (no video) recordings, for example a podcast, a transcript is required. If the event is a live stream of audio only, a text script or transcript is suggested but not required.

Web Accessibility Resources

Whether you’re building or updating a webpage, adding an image, uploading and linking a document or video to a website or email the content must be accessible to users with disabilities. See specific guidelines: