Accessibility and inclusion: The importance of captions for everyone

Web accessibility has always been a requirement for UMaine websites, and ensuring your content is accessible is part of an inclusive communication strategy.

In this month’s newsletter we focus on captions for video content and how it is useful for all visitors.

Captions are required for videos with dialog

The University of Maine System (UMS) requires our websites adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and their “success criterion” indicate that captions are provided for all prerecorded and live audio content in synchronized media. The intent is to enable people who are deaf or hard of hearing to watch such presentations. The Kaltura video platform provided by UMS can create these captions, as can the popular social media site Youtube. This recorded workshop from 2021 details how to edit and improve Youtube’s auto-generated captions.

Captions are increasingly used by students

The benefits of captioning your videos goes beyond adherence to these requirements, however. A recent survey found that more than half of 13-39-year-olds prefer to watch video content with captions:

• Captions help distinguish less familiar accents
• Captions allow for understanding the video without relying on the audio volume
• 59% of Gen Z and 52% of millennials use subtitles

(Source: Reading Between the LInes: Gen Z Really Loves Closed Captions)

UMS Academy instruction on video accessibility

An updated Accessibility training will be provided when the newly envisioned UMS Academy launches in August. Meanwhile, the Designing Accessible Digital Content Module 5 (which covers Video and Audio accessibility concerns) is available to view.