1.2.3 – Audio Description or Media Alternative (Pre-recorded)
Provide a second alternative for video with sound.
Users with hearing impairments may not be able perceive the sound on a video.
While captions can provide some assistance, adding an audio description track or text transcript helps more users enjoy your content.
How to pass
Provide a full text transcript of the video; or
Provide a version of the video with audio description.
Exceptions
You don’t need to satisfy this guideline if the video is itself an alternative to other content.
Tips
A text transcript is a document that includes all information present in the video, essentially a script for the video. This means including any visual cues (for example, ‘The fisherman holds up a large bass.’) as well as dialogue and non-speech sounds.
Audio description is an edited version of a video’s soundtrack that adds more information than the regular soundtrack offers during pauses. This might mean narrating movements that are not audibly explained in the video, identifying speakers or explaining visual information.
Something like a straight face-to-face interview, or a speech-to-camera would probably not need audio description. If your video conveys all its information through the regular soundtrack, you don’t need to provide an audio description track. Keep this in mind when creating videos.
To meet this guideline, it’s easier to provide users with a text transcript instead of audio description. However, the either/or option only covers Level A. To reach Level AA you need to offer audio description (see 1.2.5) and for Level AAA you need both audio description and text transcript (see 1.2.8).
If you’re going to the length of audio description for this guideline, you can also satisfy 1.2.5 and 1.2.7 by recording extended audio description tracks wherever necessary.
Now you’ve read up on 1.2.3 – Audio Description or Media Alternative (Pre-recorded), join the discussion at wuhcag.com. Myself and the Wuhcag community are always on hand to help with questions and we’d love to learn your tips and tricks for this guideline.
Luke