A Detailed Guide: Audio Descriptions for Accessible Videos on your Website
We often rely on sight in our daily lives, from navigating spaces to enjoying videos and performances. But what if you couldn’t use your sight? In our technology-driven world, especially in the U.S., it’s crucial that digital content, including web and video, is accessible to everyone, including those with vision impairments.
Audio description, a critical tool for accessibility, has evolved significantly since its early concepts in the 1970s by Gregory Frazier. Initially developed for live performances, audio description found its way into television with WGBH’s Descriptive Video Services in 1987. This innovation later expanded to museums, theater productions, and online media, making it indispensable in today’s digital age, where video content is paramount.
In this blog, EcomBack informs businesses about the benefits and importance of implementing high-quality audio descriptions for inclusivity and legal compliance.
What are Audio Descriptions?
Audio description, also known as descriptive audio or described video, is a key accessibility feature for blind and low-vision audiences. Narrating visual elements in videos is essential for comprehension and inclusion.
Audio description is a solution for those who are blind or have low vision. It’s an audio track that provides a narrative of the crucial visual elements in media. By describing these elements, audio description ensures that individuals with visual impairments can fully understand and appreciate the content. It’s not just about accessibility; it’s about offering an equivalent experience, enabling blind and low-vision individuals to enjoy media just as their sighted counterparts do.
The 2 Types of Audio Descriptions: Standard and Extended
All video content requires audio descriptions, whether for TV shows and movies, training clips, or music videos. There are two types to consider: standard and extended audio descriptions, each with its specific purpose.
Standard Audio Description
Standard audio descriptions are brief narrations within natural dialogue pauses. This type ensures conciseness and clarity without overshadowing the original content, maintaining a seamless viewing experience. It’s ideal for videos with regular pauses or minimal descriptive needs.
Extended Audio Description
EcomBack recommends using extended audio descriptions to provide detailed descriptions during long pauses, ensuring thorough coverage of visual elements.
Standard vs. Extended: Making the Right Choice for Your Business
Choosing between standard and extended audio descriptions depends on the nature of your video. If there’s ample space for narration, then a standard audio description will suffice. Extended audio description, meanwhile, is designed for content-rich videos lacking natural pauses.
The Growing Importance of Audio Description
Audio description becomes increasingly crucial in our video-centric society with a significant portion of the world’s population experiencing vision impairment. It caters to the diverse needs of over 285 million people worldwide who experience vision loss, including 23.7 million Americans with visual impairments. The growing importance of audio descriptions is undeniable. Providing descriptive audio allows for a more inclusive experience for all viewers.
Audio description extends its benefits beyond individuals with blindness or low vision. For instance, it’s a valuable tool for auditory learners, enhancing their comprehension and understanding. Additionally, it aids individuals on the Autism spectrum in recognizing emotional cues.
Here are additional reasons why it’s important to implement audio descriptions in all your videos:
Autism Support: Audio description is particularly beneficial for individuals on the Autism spectrum. It assists in interpreting emotional and social cues, often only expressed visually. Someone on the Autism spectrum may not comprehend certain facial expressions or body language, so using audio descriptions can help enhance understanding and engagement.
Learning a New Language: For non-native speakers, audio descriptions play a crucial role in developing language skills. People learning a new language can use audio descriptions to connect spoken words to actions and behaviors.
Child Development: Audio-described videos for children can assist in language development in several ways. Listening to audio repeatedly can aid a child in developing speech. Additionally, audio descriptions can reinforce the meaning of words, further supporting language development.
Helpful for Auditory Learners: Approximately 20-30% of students find it easier to retain information through listening as opposed to visual learning. Audio descriptions cater to this learning style effectively.
Combatting Inattentional Blindness: Inattentional blindness, also known as perceptual blindness, is when an individual fails to see something that’s right in front of their eyes. Audio description can help highlight crucial visual details that might be missed due to inattentional blindness, ensuring all viewers receive a complete understanding of the content.
Legal Compliance: Adhering to accessibility laws, audio descriptions fulfill legal obligations, making content accessible to a wider audience and avoiding potential legal issues.
Flexibility in Viewing: Audio descriptions allow for a versatile viewing experience, particularly in situations where watching a screen isn’t feasible. This can be during commutes, multitasking, or simply resting the eyes.
Understanding the U.S. Federal Laws related to Audio Descriptions
Audio descriptions provide vital auditory cues for blind or low-vision individuals, making digital content more accessible. In the U.S., laws such as The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act guide audio description requirements.
Below is more information about the laws that mandate audio descriptions:
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
The ADA is a landmark civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities. It covers various sectors, including employment, public services, and transportation, ensuring that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else. Title II and Title III of the ADA require public accommodations, such as movie theaters, to provide audio descriptions for prerecorded video content in “synchronized media.”
The Rehabilitation Act: Protecting Rights and Services
This act focuses on the rights of individuals with disabilities, especially in programs receiving federal funding. Key sections, 504 and 508, address nondiscrimination and accessibility standards for electronic and information technology, as well as film, video, and multimedia.
21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA)
The CVAA updates existing communications laws to include modern digital and mobile technologies. It ensures that accessibility laws from the 20th century apply to 21st-century innovations, making communications more inclusive for people with disabilities.
These laws highlight the importance of inclusive digital content. At EcomBack, we believe providing accessible content isn’t just a legal requirement but a moral imperative, ensuring everyone has equal access to the digital world.
Understanding WCAG 2.0
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 is recognized internationally as the standard for web accessibility. These guidelines are integral to legal standards and offer detailed recommendations to make web content more accessible to a diverse audience, including individuals with disabilities. By following WCAG 2.0, content becomes accessible not only to people with disabilities, such as those who are blind or have low vision but also enhances the overall user experience for everyone.
Let’s explore the three WCAG Compliance Levels:
- Level A: This foundational level requires providing alternative audio or text for any non-text content, ensuring basic accessibility for people with auditory or visual impairments.
- Level AA: Building on Level A, this standard mandates audio descriptions for all pre-recorded video content, making multimedia more accessible, particularly for individuals who are blind or have low vision.
- Level AAA: The most advanced level, AAA, calls for extended audio descriptions, which offer detailed insights into the content, benefiting users who require more comprehensive auditory information.
How to Create Effective, High-Quality Audio Descriptions
When creating audio descriptions, focusing on elements crucial for narrative comprehension is vital. This includes detailing character actions, settings, and plot developments. The goal is to provide clear, concise descriptions that aid understanding without distraction. Compelling audio descriptions should seamlessly integrate with the media, ensuring accessibility and enriching the viewing experience for all audiences.
Be Concise: Craft clear and simple audio descriptions for better comprehension. Employ descriptive and precise language, ensuring relevance to the content’s context. Avoid technical jargon and offensive terms while appropriately acknowledging ethnicity. Regularly expand your vocabulary, focusing on varied and vivid verbs.
Style and Presentation: The way audio descriptions are presented should complement the video content’s tone, pace, and mood. You should avoid overpowering the dialogue and try to speak during less critical moments. It’s also important that you practice good microphone etiquette, meaning you should avoid unnecessary noises, background interference, or volume fluctuations.
Timing: Describe actions as they happen or slightly beforehand, especially in scenes with significant emotional impact. This allows listeners to experience emotions simultaneously with the rest of the audience.
How to Implement Audio Description in Videos
Adding audio descriptions to videos can be challenging, mainly due to the varying capabilities of media players and platforms. Nevertheless, there are several methods to effectively integrate descriptions into audio-visual content, ensuring compliance with the WCAG Success Criteria. Each method has its unique advantages and limitations, depending on the type of content and the technology used.
User-Selectable Audio Tracks: This approach involves adding a separate audio track to the video, which includes the audio description. The effectiveness of this method depends heavily on the media player’s capabilities. It’s an excellent option for providing accessibility without altering the original content, as viewers can choose whether to activate the AD track.
Alternate Video Versions: Creating a different version of your video with integrated audio descriptions can effectively cater to diverse audiences. This method involves releasing two versions of the same video—one with audio descriptions and one without—ensuring that the content is accessible to both visually impaired and sighted audiences.
Extended Description Version: For videos with complex visual elements, offering a version with extended audio descriptions can be beneficial. This technique involves creating a longer video version where the audio descriptions provide more comprehensive details about the visual content, allowing for a richer experience for visually impaired viewers.
Static Text Alternatives: In situations where the video content is relatively static, such as a lecture or interview with a single speaker, providing a text-based description can be a viable alternative. This method is particularly useful for videos where the visual elements aren’t crucial to understanding the content.
WebVTT Description Track: Utilizing a WebVTT (Web Video Text Tracks) file is a modern technique for HTML5 videos. This format allows screen readers to narrate the descriptions, making the video accessible to those who rely on screen reading software. However, it’s important to note that not all video players support WebVTT files yet.
Different Audio Description Formats to Consider
It is important to offer a variety of audio description formats to meet different accessibility needs. These formats give content creators and businesses the flexibility to select the best option that suits their platform or video player requirements. By providing these diverse formats, content creators can effectively enhance the accessibility of their videos, creating a more inclusive and engaging experience for all viewers.
Text-Based AD Tracks
Text-based formats transform audio descriptions into written text, which can be downloaded as DOC, WebVTT, TXT, and merged and stamped documents. These are particularly useful for deaf-blind viewers, as they merge audio transcripts with visual descriptions. However, it’s important to know that it may not capture all the details of the original video content.
Media-Based Formats
These are audio descriptions-only assets that don’t include the source audio. It can be delivered as either an MP3, OGG, or WAV. It’s also possible to combine mixed audio description with the source media into one file and downloaded as MP4, MP3, OGG, or WAV. The biggest advantage of media-based formats is that it offers a richer, more immersive experience.
Choosing a Suitable Audio Description Service for Your Needs
When selecting an audio description service, several important factors to consider include cost, quality, and the number of available features. Depending on your specific needs, you may find a wide range of options to choose from.
Here are some factors to keep in mind when making your choice:
- Cost: Depending on your needs and budget, it’s important to assess the vendor’s pricing structure and determine which one holds more value. The cost of audio description can vary significantly based on various factors. For example, a company that offers traditional audio descriptions with human voice actors may have a higher price point than one that utilizes technology or synthesized speech.
- Quality: It’s important that the audio description vendor delivers high-quality descriptions as it ensures that your content will be accessible and enjoyable for your viewers. Quality audio descriptions must be accurate, well-prioritized, consistent, appropriate, and inclusive.
- Features: The ability to customize, edit, and easily publish your audio descriptions are considered valuable features when choosing an AD service. Ask the audio description vendor whether they provide support for publishing and offer customization and editing options.
EcomBack Provides Comprehensive Audio Description Services for your videos and website
EcomBack offers comprehensive audio description services that address all of these important factors. By choosing us, you can ensure that your content is not only compliant but also accessible and enjoyable for all of your viewers.
