From website videos to social media management, video has become a core part of the content I produce and publish as a digital marketing consultant. But, sometimes, I can get so focused on the story or production quality of a video that accessibility becomes a secondary concern.
The result is often rushed and incomplete. Given the huge audience that accessibility features cater to, and the increasing amount of regulation around the topic, I thought it’s time I share what I’ve learned in attempting to increase my knowledge of video accessibility steps, best practices, and available tools. Plus, I spoke with some of the biggest names in video accessibility to gather some top tips from the experts.
Table of Contents
What Is Video Accessibility?
Accessibility is the practice of ensuring your digital content can be accessed and interpreted by all users, regardless of physical or cognitive ability. Video accessibility refers to embedding these practices specifically in the design, publication, and distribution of video content.
Video accessibility requires different tools and processes at various stages of video production. There are also multiple needs to take into account such as captions for people with hearing challenges or audio descriptions for the visually impaired. Plus, videos (and the places where they are hosted) need to be navigable by people who use assistive technology.
Throughout my time working on digital content and website design upgrades, video has gradually become a central component of any business’s digital presence. Whether I’m working on a B2B or B2C website, video plays a hugely important role. Just like any other website content, I always want to make sure it’s as optimized and accessible as possible. So, although I work regularly with video producers and editors to make sure that’s the case, it’s important for any digital marketer to know the score when it comes to accessibility.
The Importance of Video Accessibility in Web Accessibility
Video accessibility is important for many reasons. As the internet (particularly social media) becomes more of a video-first space, accessibility ensures a digital world that’s available to all. As a marketer, I also want to make sure that any website or content I work on isn’t unavailable to a significant portion of my target audience.
But what else makes video accessibility an important part of web accessibility?
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Website Accessibility Checklist
This checklist will help you make the following more accessible on your website:
- Web Pages
- Navigation
- Video & Media
- And More!
Download Free
All fields are required.
1. Making Your Online Presence Inclusive
WebAIM produces an annual study on the accessibility level of the world’s most popular 1 million web pages. It always surprises me that a high number of accessibility issues persist, even on the world’s most visited websites.
In 2024, 95.9% of the homepages tested produced accessibility issues categorized as failures under Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), a tiny improvement on the 96.3% result for the same test in 2023.
And yet, in a 2024 Workday survey, 78% of global business leaders claimed inclusion became more important throughout 2023.
Making your business — and therefore your online presence — truly inclusive means putting in practical and tangible efforts with accessibility.
2. Staying Compliant
Video accessibility isn’t just a “nice to have.” Ignoring it can land businesses in hot water reputationally and even result in legal trouble.
In 2019, a visually impaired woman sued Parkwood Entertainment for accessibility issues on Beyonce’s website under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Many other websites, including household-name retailers like Target, have faced similar legal action, while more still are at risk of the same. In fact, 2023 saw over 4,000 federal and state web accessibility lawsuits filed.
As diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives increasingly become strategic pillars for organizations across all industries, the reputational damage alone places web accessibility at the forefront of this issue.
3. Improving Overall User Experience
Many web accessibility guidelines make websites more user-friendly for everyone, not just those who strictly need these features to access and navigate your website.
The bottom-line results of accessibility are significant. It’s estimated that UK retailers alone lost out on around £17.1 billion in 2019 due to accessibility issues on their websites.
“When you make your videos accessible, you reap the benefits of increased use and usability by all,” says Shawn Lawton Henry, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) program lead.
“For example, captions can be used in loud environments where users cannot hear the audio, in quiet environments where users cannot turn on sound, and by non-native speakers who cannot understand the spoken language well and can understand the written language better. Several studies report that Millennials and Gen Z use captions even though they don't have hearing loss.”
4. Improving Discoverability for Your Content
Being inclusive of people with disabilities is not the only aspect of web accessibility. Search engines and social media platforms cannot watch or hear your videos. They rely on closed captions (whether provided through automated means or uploaded by you) to scan and interpret your site content.
Similarly, important accessibility features like alt tags and clear navigation also enable search engine bots to crawl and interpret your site more easily.
The net effect is that your site gains higher rankings in search results and, therefore, becomes more discoverable for all users.
How to Make Accessible Videos
The good news is that, compared to even five years ago, there are tons of tools available to help you make video content as accessible as possible. But in this section, I’ve outlined some step-by-step guidance so you can cover all your bases, along with a few tools I tested myself.
1. Embed Accessibility into Your Planning
In the past, I have worked on video content where accessibility was a retroactive concern. It meant that, sometimes, entire sections of a video had to be recreated or re-shot. Video content takes time, and having to re-do even one section from scratch costs you time and budget.
These days, I’ll take accessibility into consideration right from the planning stages. This includes everything from storyboarding and scriptwriting to the tech involved in recording and editing.
Don’t forget that there are a few main accessibility concerns when it comes to video:
- Some people will not be able to see your video’s visual elements.
- Some people will not be able to hear your audio.
- And certain animations and speed of transitions, among other things, may make your video difficult for some to view and interpret in full.
So, your accessibility planning has to take all these factors into account.
In this instance, I started with a social media video template on Canva. I then planned the video changes in such a way that a lack of audio or visuals still made the video understandable by writing a script first and then storyboarding any extra visuals and transitions I would need afterwards. I chose very clean frames and cuts with text for social media and smooth transitions.
You could also use HubSpot’s Clip Creator tool to automatically generate an entire video based on text instructions and a template video, using AI to customize it to your needs.
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2. Make Your Audio and Visuals Super Clear
This is a good rule of thumb for any video production, regardless of accessibility. But clarity in sound and sharpness in film and graphics ensures that anyone with either visual or auditory challenges has a positive user experience with your content.
When it comes to visuals these days, even high-end smartphones have exceptionally good cameras. But you should still test out things like lighting and focus with a few test clips to be sure. Be careful not to overuse filters which may degrade the focus or quality of your film.
From an audio point of view, a professional microphone is best. My go-to microphone is still the Blue Yeti microphone, especially for close-up audio like voiceovers or podcasts. It’s beginner-friendly and, provided you follow best practices on the settings and position the mic correctly, it gives great audio. I’ve used it for years and haven’t found a better alternative in the same price range.
Clear audio also makes other accessibility features easier to implement further along in the editing and uploading process, including generating closed caption files. With lower-quality audio, you’ll spend far more time editing your “.srt” file into legible captions.
Here’s another option that I tested out for this example video: AI voice generator tools.
Some of these tools have become more sophisticated recently in comparison to the robotic, clunky vocals produced by earlier versions of this tech. Lots of content creators are choosing to leverage them for video because it cuts down on production and editing time while providing very clear audio files for your content.
I tried Play.ht which provides a wide range of voices and accents to choose from. All I had to do was drop my script into a text box, choose the rhythm and energy of my chosen voice, and export the final audio file.
3. Provide Legible and Well-Timed Captions
Good video captions are far more commonplace now than they were previously. With video-first social media platforms like TikTok on the rise, this type of video accessibility is quickly becoming essential. There are also occasions when people want to view video in public without using audio, meaning they rely on good captions to view the content on their phone.
Many video platforms like YouTube and Vimeo automatically generate closed captions after you upload. But they still frequently require significant editing due to spelling errors or out-of-sync timing.
Svetlana Kouznetsova, B2B Accessibility Strategy Consultant and author of Sound Is Not Enough: The Art of Captioning for Universal Access, had some great thoughts to share on this:
“Captions benefit everyone, not just deaf people. However, to create effective and inclusive captions, it's important to design them based on the needs of deaf people first. Understanding the unique communication needs and preferences of the deaf community is essential to create captions that are accessible and useful for all.”
The first thing to decide is open or closed captions. Open captions are hardcoded into the video file so that they are always present. Closed captions can be turned on or off by the viewer.
I typically opt for open captions, especially for social media content and website video files. It takes away any potential issues with syncing and gives me more control over the size and format of the captions.
Next, I generate the captions file (usually in .srt format). More in-depth video editing tools like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut provide a captions file that you can export and edit.
You can also upload your video content to a caption-generating tool. There are lots of free ones out there, especially for social media videos. But for this example, I tried out Kapwings, which has a ton of video features including an AI-powered subtitle generator.
It was very straightforward to use. All I had to do was upload my video file and hit a button to auto-generate subtitles.
Given that I’m working with a short and very straightforward video clip in this example, the subtitles were almost perfect. But I still had to correct a couple of small spelling issues and typos. For longer videos with less clear audio, you would definitely need a tight proofreading and editing process. However, the timing was almost perfect.
There were plenty of text formatting options, including lots of colors and statement fonts. These would be ideal for social media videos that need a bit more visual styling to generate longer views and engagement. But for accessibility purposes, I went with white text on a black background.
Kapwing allows you to download either the full video file with hardcoded captions, or you can download the caption file separately as .srt, .vtt, or .txt.
4. Create and Edit Your Transcript
Transcripts and captions both involve providing written formats of your video. But with a transcript, you can also include descriptions of any visual elements and transitions.
Transcripts can be used by people with auditory impairments, similar to captions. They’re also frequently used by people with cognitive impairments who prefer to read and listen at the same time or read instead of watching.
For example, on YouTube, you can click the three dots underneath the video and select “Open Transcript.” A pane will open to the right-hand side of the video with a scrollable transcript if one is available. I like to generate transcripts because I frequently repurpose long-form video content into blog posts and written guides, which is an added bonus.
Lawton Henry also shared some thoughts on transcripts: “I‘m one of those people who don’t usually watch videos. I prefer to skim the transcript. Sometimes I want to watch a specific point in a video. So I appreciate an interactive transcript where I can search for a specific phrase and jump to that point in the video.”
Again, platforms like YouTube often create automated transcripts that you can download and edit.
This seemed like another opportunity to try out some AI-driven tools in this area. So, I tested out Vizard to see whether it would cut down on the time I usually spend editing automatically generated transcript files.
Vizard produced a nice interactive transcript with a highlight that guides the reader alongside the video in real time. But there was no automated interpretation of the visuals. That detail would need to be added in manually if I wanted to include it.
5. Create an Audio Description File
An audio description is similar to a transcript, but is a spoken version of the visual action in your video. It typically overlays onto your audio file (sometimes as a separate audio file) with a description of the visual elements happening on screen. This means that people with visual impairments can hear any audio like dialogue or voiceovers, but also interpret the visual elements of your video content.
For this video, I needed to keep the audio description tactical and short because there is already so much audio happening with the voiceover. The transcript would probably be a more useful accessibility tool in this scenario. But for longer-form video content with lots of actions and visuals, an audio file can provide far more value to the user.
Website Accessibility Checklist
This checklist will help you make the following more accessible on your website:
- Web Pages
- Navigation
- Video & Media
- And More!
Download Free
All fields are required.
When creating an audio description file, I’ll usually take my transcript and expand it where needed to include more detail about the visuals. Once that’s done, the audio description needs to be recorded. These days, I rely on AI tools to generate audio descriptions based on my script.
AI4chat is a free tool that lets me paste my written description script and generates the audio file. I liked that you can choose between the “default” tone of voice or options including “friendly,” “confident,” and “professional” from an extensive dropdown. You can also generate an audio description in whichever language you need.
After this, I can go back to Play.ht and get an AI-generated audio file using this audio description script.
Next, I’ll upload my audio file into my video editing software and make sure it syncs well with the visuals on screen. Typically, I’m doing this in something like Canva video editor or iMovie, but more professional video editing tools like Adobe Premiere provide you with the option to upload multiple audio files and do more finetuning and editing.
If I’m uploading the video onto YouTube, I can upload the audio description as a separate audio file which can then be turned on or off by the user as needed. For website videos, you’ll need a video player with accessibility features that enable audio descriptions to be played.
6. Use Video Players With Built-In Accessibility
If I plan to upload a video directly to a website, YouTube embedding is always a good option, but this does have some accessibility limitations compared with native YouTube viewing. You can also use website video players to upload the video directly which allow for features like audio descriptions, transcripts, keyboard navigation, and compatibility with screen readers.
Two popular options are AblePlayer and JWPlayer. Both are HTML5 players and, beyond some nice extras, the most notable difference is that AblePlayer provides an interactive transcript option.
Note: Without a video player that supports accessibility, your transcripts, closed captions and audio descriptions cannot be accessed by the end user.
With HubSpot Content Hub, you can also leverage the Video & Podcast Hosting feature to record and embed your content, or use the Content Embed feature to embed external video files on your website pages.
Video Accessibility Best Practices
Throughout each step of the video production and editing process, there are some best practices you can keep in mind to further improve its accessibility.
Don’t cut corners on editing.
Creating accessible video content is easier than it’s ever been. But with so much automation available, it can be tempting to cut corners on quality control. It’s something I found challenging while testing out various tools. AI, in particular, makes it too easy to skim-edit elements like captions for the sake of getting the job done quickly.
As Larry Goldberg, accessible media and content technologist (with previous roles as head of accessibility at Yahoo and Verizon Media), noted to me: captioned broadcasts have been around since 1972, with user-selectable captioning available as early as 1980. But these days, captioning is becoming pervasive and found in everything from streaming services to mobile devices, video conferencing platforms, and recorded events. With this prolificity, Goldberg is concerned we’re quickly compromising quality for speed and convenience.
“Like in the earliest days of ASR for captioning, it’s apparent that quality and accuracy are not high priorities and ‘better than nothing’ is the benchmark for quality. I think we can do better now, with the advanced tools in hand, heightened awareness of the importance of media […] accessibility and a slew of legislation and regulations now mandating accessibility worldwide.”
“Keeping humans in the loop and assuring that high-quality accessibility is included in the definition of ‘minimum viable products’ will help assure that what we are creating is embraced and welcomed by all.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Lawton Henry: “With AI, automatic captions are getting much better; yet, you still cannot totally rely on them,” she says.
“For example, missing just one word such as ‘not’ can make the captions contradict the audio content. Machine-generated captions can be used as a starting point, and will need review and editing to be accurate.”
So, while you can use automation tools to your advantage, true accessibility implementation still requires a careful, human touch in the editing process.
Make your captions high-quality.
Editing the text of your captions is only one aspect of ensuring their quality. It’s also essential to make your captions highly readable for your entire audience.
When testing out caption tools, I came across a lot with tons of color options and other bells and whistles that were clearly geared toward social media content. But I wasn’t overly happy with them from an accessibility perspective.
The changes in font, size, and color, and the speed at which some words and sentences flew past, seem counterintuitive to the purpose of captions.
“I would emphasize the importance of making captions high quality, not just available,” says Thomas Logan, accessibility consultant and owner and CEO at Equal Entry.
“For example the level of accuracy of captions varies widely with a lot of people being ok with ‘good enough’ auto-captions. The timing of the display of captions and the customization ability of captions are important things to consider for going beyond the minimum for accessibility.”
For most video content and aspect ratios, I find that white text on a black background in a very legible font size is best.
Build your content around accessibility.
I mentioned earlier that baking accessibility into your planning process is essential. But there are several small ways you can produce and edit your content to automatically make it more accessible right off the bat.
“Author scripts to include people's names and audio descriptions as much as possible so that a second audio track is not necessary,” recommends Logan.
Another way I like to do this is building the outline of my transcript and audio descriptions as a I storyboard, rather than waiting until the editing process. It helps ensure I have ample space for audio descriptions that won’t overlap with vocal audio, for example, which can make the video lose meaning and context.
Make Video Accessibility a Part of Your Gameplan
There’s no doubt that fully building accessibility into your videos takes some work. But, if you build it into the planning right from the start, it becomes much more feasible.
What I found throughout the process of implementing video accessibility features was that there is now a huge variety of tools available to make it faster and easier. So, if you can build accessibility into your existing video production and publishing processes with the right tech at your side, you’ll become efficient in no time.
Website Accessibility Checklist
This checklist will help you make the following more accessible on your website:
- Web Pages
- Navigation
- Video & Media
- And More!
Download Free
All fields are required.
