Techniques for WCAG 2.0

Skip to Content (Press Enter)

This document is a draft, and is designed to show changes from a previous version. It is presently showing added text,changed text,deleted text,[start]/[end] markers,and Issue Numbers.

Hide All Edits   |   Toggle Deletions  |   Toggle Issue Numbers   |   Toggle [start]/[end] Markers   |   Show All Edits

Changes are displayed as follows:

-

G173: Providing a version of a movie with audio descriptions

Applicability

Any technology that supports audio and video.

This technique relates to:

Description

The objective of this technique is to provide a second version of video content that provides audio desciptions so that it is possible for people who cannot see to be able to understand audio-visual material.

Since most user agents today cannot merge multiple sound tracks, this technique adds the additional audio information to synchronized media by providing a second version of the movie where the original soundtrack and additional audio description have been combined in a single track. This additional information focuses on actions, characters, scene changes and on-screen text (not captions) that are important to understanding the content.

Since it is not helpful to have this new information obscure key audio information in the original sound track (or be obscured by loud sound effects), the new information is added during pauses in dialogue and sound effects. This limits the amount of supplementary information that can be added to program.

Providing a second version of the movie that includes audio descriptions as the primary sound track will make this content accessible for blind people who need to hear not only the dialogue, but also the context and other aspects of the video that are not communicated by the characters' dialogue alone.

Examples

Resources

Resources are for information purposes only, no endorsement implied.

Tests

Procedure

  1. [begin change]

    Open the version of the media that includes audio description.

    [end change]
  2. Listen to the movie.

  3. Check to see if gaps in dialogue are used to convey important information regarding visual content.

  4. If the alternate version(s) are on a separate page, check for the availability of link(s) to allow the user to get to the other versions.

Expected Results

If this is a sufficient technique for a success criterion, failing this test procedure does not necessarily mean that the success criterion has not been satisfied in some other way, only that this technique has not been successfully implemented and can not be used to claim conformance.