Accessible Video

Accessible Video & Audio

How to Make your Videos and Audio Accessible for Students

• If you have a student with an visual impairment, consider pausing throughout the video to verbally explain important and visually-centered scenes. Do not rely on visual content alone.

• If you have a student with an hearing impairment, use subtitles and captioning to convey important auditory information and dialogue. If your video does not include subtitles, talk to Access Services for more information.

Media Player

The buttons need to be properly labeled so a screen reader user can operate the player.

Keyboard Navigation

It is important to accessibility that students can access and operate a media player with the keyboard alone (not using a mouse)

• To test for keyboard accessibility, press the Tab key to navigate to the player, and use the Tab, Arrow keys, Enter, and Spacebar to interact with the media player buttons. Video is a great tool for many students but can pose problems for students with visual and hearing impairments alike. 

Captioned Media

We recommend you first search for captioned media. If you need material captioned, this may be provided upon request. Please allow 7 business days for processing.

Search for captioned media

The Evergreen State College Library has a wide selection of captioned media. Please check with the Sound & Image Library for material. How do I find human transcribed captioned videos on YouTube? (Search from YouTube site)

1. Enter your search keyword in the YouTube Search field.
2. Add a: , CC (a comma, CC)
3. Press Enter or click the magnifying glass icon

How do I find human transcribed captioned videos from Google?

1. Fill out the Advanced Video Search fields that you need.
2. Choose the "Subtitles: Closed captioned only" option.
3. Press Enter or click the Advanced Video search button.

Make sure the YouTube video you use IS NOT Auto-generated. How do I know?

• Click the Settings button and check the Subtitles field. Avoid auto-generated subtitles and the Translate feature which are not usually accurate.