UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In the March accessibility highlight, the Penn State Accessibility Team has compiled its top recommendations and resources to help users create accessible videos.
Choose an accessible video player
An accessible video player allows a screen reader or a sighted person using a keyboard to control how the video plays. Accessible video players also include options to upload a caption file. Penn State's Kaltura service and YouTube are examples of services with accessible players. Consider reviewing the following pages before using these two players:
Develop a captioning workflow
Captions, which provide dialogue and audio cues for users who cannot hear the audio, are essential for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. They are also widely used by people wishing to view videos in noisy environments or in situations where the video’s audio would disturb others.
Penn State captioning resources include vendor discount codes and caption editing tools in Kaltura, Adobe Premiere and elsewhere that make adding captions to previously recorded videos easier than ever before. Caption editors can also leverage AI-generated automatic speech recognition files to audit caption files more quickly.
Live captions
Live captions are not always required, but the University offers discount codes for such services to help reduce costs. See the Caption Decision Tree (login required) to determine when live captions and "post-production" captions are required.
Audio description
Video editors and subject matter experts should ensure all content is available to anyone who can only hear the video’s audio track. There are several methods to ensure this, including providing a narrated video for any video created at Penn State or for any external video selected. More information about audio description techniques is on the Penn State Accessibility website.
Pausing video
There are Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) that mandate when pause buttons should be provided for videos. Generally, if a video or animated content runs for more than three seconds, a pause button should be provided. Including a play button that lets viewers choose when to play a video or animation is also an option.
Color accessibility
Color guidelines for contrast and accessible color coding apply to videos. More information about color accessibility can be found on the Color and Accessibility page of the Penn State Accessibility website.
The Penn State Accessibility Team also recommends reviewing the training videos on video accessibility available on their website. For questions about these or other accessibility requirements at Penn State, please reach out to the accessibility team at accessibility@psu.edu.