Web Accessibility Tools

Closed captions make video content accessible to individuals who are hard of hearing or Deaf and also benefits those for whom English is not their first language. The FCC has released best practices for the captioning of television shows which are equally applicable to captioning online video content. According to these standards, captions must be:

• Accurate: Captions must match the spoken words in the dialogue and convey background noises and other sounds to the fullest extent possible.

• Synchronous: Captions must coincide with their corresponding spoken words and sounds to the greatest extent possible and must be displayed on the screen at a speed that can be read by viewers.

• Complete: Captions must run from the beginning to the end of the program to the fullest extent possible.

• Properly placed: Captions should not block other important visual content on the screen, overlap one another or run off the edge of the video screen.