With video accessibility, there can be more eyes and ears on your lessons - catering to students of all abilities
Why is video accessibility important?
We believe that video content has the potential to be one of the most accessible and inclusive formats to deliver your lessons. A fully accessible video with supporting captions, audio description of on-screen content, and a full transcript of audio and visual information, gives users choice and flexibility of how and when they interact with your content. Based on their ability or learning preference; they can choose to see it, hear it, read it, or a combination of these.
Technology has changed the way students engage with educational content. It allows us to adapt information to meet the needs of the individual, instead of the individual needing to change or adapt to access information.
Knowing that we all learn and access information differently, there is a need to be doing more than simply recording lectures or teaching sessions.
Online learning is continuing to grow globally. The global online education market is estimated to reach a revenue of US$185.20bn this year, with a projected market volume of US$257.70bn by 2028.
Collages, schools and universities are tapping into this new revenue stream with Enrolment in digital learning programs growing steadily over the last decade. In the US, nine out of ten businesses now provide workers with e-learning opportunities. One survey found 67% of American college students said they used their mobile devices for online learning while another poll found 70% of students said online learning was better than traditional classroom settings due to its flexibility and often greater affordability.
But the hurdle for most content creators is: 'How do I make my lessons more accessible? Adding in captions and audio descriptions has been hard in the past and time consuming.' This is why we created Mava.
Mava (which stands for Meet Aandi Video Accessibility) is an online tool that intuitively reviews (using machine learning) all aspects of your video. Starting by providing automated captioning that improves as you update (teach) common phrases and terminology for your lessons, the intuitive editor also enables text-based descriptions of diagrams or images to be integrated as audio description for the video and a full text output of all captions and descriptions to be generated.
Who does it help?
Put simply, accessible video’s help everyone.
Specifically, there are many students and parents who rely on content being accessible in order to access it; such as those with low vision, colour blindness, low literacy, where English is a second language, and those who are neurodivergent.
A remediated video captures all that is said (captions), all that is shown (audio description) and put them into a transcript as a reference. Together, these three formats ensure the video content is made accessible for people of all abilities.
What sort of video can be remediated?
We can remediate most video formats and all video types. Mava loads in your video and runs the AI over it to create accurate captions. We have intuitive options that take out all 'ums and ahhs', and you can teach the tool as you correct any things it gets wrong (if any). You can also add in your audio descriptions where they are needed. To do this, you simply type in what you want the description of a scene or moment to be, and the neural voice will dictate it for you. Then, you save the files and export all file versions, ready for upload. It really is a very simple task that can make a significant impact on your students.
What are the legal requirements?
In order to adhere to the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and WCAG 2.1 compliancy standards, videos must be remediated to give the viewer access to an audio description version with a few additional features they can access or turn on as needed.
To make a video accessible, there are three key components that are required.
Components of Accessible Video
Captions
A text version of everything that is presented in the audio
Audio Descriptions
An audio version of everything that is presented on the screen
Transcript
A text document containing all the audio and visual content
Captions
Videos are often as much about what is heard as it is about what is seen. Whether the video focuses on instructions for installing a car part, reporting the news of the day, or even presenting a nature documentary; the audio provides an important layer that visuals alone cannot provide… unless you have captions of course!
We live busy lives, our attention is often split and the reality is that having the ability to read and/or hear the same thing gives more opportunities for people to absorb the message they are consuming. For some people, captions are not an optional extra, but instead becomes the only way of accessing audio content - making it that much more important to get right the first time.
Ask us about captions to find out how quick and easy it is to reach a wider audience with your video content.
Difference between Captions and Subtitles
Captions provide a text version of all of the sound-based information in a video, displayed concurrently with the sounds occurring. This includes non-speech elements like music, environmental sounds and changes in tone. They will also often identify speakers if multiple voices could be heard together.
Subtitles were designed for translating audio into other languages, and will only contain speech elements. Videos that contain captions in their native language will often only contain subtitles for other supported languages. While captions are better than no captions, they do not provide the full story for a user relying only on them in place of audio.
Captions in Action
Audio Descriptions
Likewise, video is often as much about what is seen as it is about what is heard. This is, after all, the reason The Buggles were so concerned about it killing the radio star (or so the song goes)!
Videos can be used for all kinds of reasons, with many accompanying the viewer doing another activity where their attention could be divided. For example, tutorial videos often involve taking in information and pausing before the viewer performs the action themselves. Being able to gain all the necessary information from the tutorial without shifting focus from the task could significantly improve the effectiveness of the tutorial.
If the visual component is so vital to video, would it not also be vital to have a description of these visuals for those who are unable to access them?
What are Audio Descriptions (AD)
Audio description is a sound-based outline of what is happening on a screen in a particular scene or still image. It will often be available as a separate or accompanying audio track that will insert descriptions into gaps in the 'standard' audio track.
Audio descriptions can be as detailed or as simplistic as the content creator deems to be necessary to tell their story. For a speech, there may be a description of the person behind a lectern (which could note their outfit if it was important information) and only include other major visual changes, such as strong gestures or change in speaker. Descriptions of a wildlife documentary are going to be significantly more detailed, as the visual would normally carry the meaning.
Audio Descriptions in Action
Transcripts
Video holds the crown for the richest accessible experience, but text content is the undisputed champion of versatility. Text content can be manipulated in every way imaginable to meet the needs of a particular user. Need another language? Translate it. Having trouble seeing it? Make it bigger. Want to put it somewhere else? Copy it to your hearts content!
People learn differently, consume differently, and have different needs and desires. Being able to take everything said and shown in a video, and convert it to a text based format to be edited or used in another way gives control to the audience. Transcripts make the perfect notes also to highlight key concepts or note reference points to review in the video.
How can I learn more?
Having a video accessibility tool is great news if you are the content creator and have some lessons, lectures, or other support videos that you need remediated. You can simply register here, then you are up and running on being able to remediate your videos yourself.
But if you have issues or if you just want to find out more, contact us on the form.
We can also help you with auditing your videos to give you an idea of what needs to be fixed to comply with the accessibility standards. Plus, we can train your team on how to use Mava, or even how to write audio descriptions.
If you want to know how to better present your training videos, we can also help with that as knowledge is power and with a few pointers we can help you present better for your students learning styles.
Our track record
Before we added our Mava video tool to Meet Aandi, this business started off specializing in document accessibility. At the time we were called TaggedPDF in Australia and while we have clients who still know us by this name, our products have expanded.
TaggedPDF was established in 2010 to help Australian government organisations and businesses to meet their newly mandated accessibility requirements and transition towards WCAG 2.0 AA compliance under the National Transition Strategy (NTS) towards December 2014 and beyond, and then with the Digital Service Standard (DSS) from 2015 onwards.
We have remediated millions of pages since then for clients all over the world. We work with the creators of content also as many times the digital documents sent through have not been designed with accessibility in mind. This is the partnership we have with our clients as we won’t just remediate a document without discussing how together we can make it 100% accessible and compliant. We see ourselves as the trainers working with the educators to make a difference to the students they teach.
We now also do this for video. We want to enable you the content creators to create and remediate your videos for accessibility. We are here to help you as much as you need it with consulting, training or we can also do the work for you if needed.
Want to find our more about videos?
Meet Aandi provides consulting services and training for those presenting to camera
on how to make your communications more accessible.