Video and audio are two of the most popular forms of media - from podcasts and social media videos to YouTube tutorials and recorded interviews. For many individuals, audio accessibility features are needed to make these content formats truly usable.

Whether someone is deaf, hard of hearing, or simply has stronger reading comprehension than listening comprehension, accessible features like captions and transcriptions are game-changers.

Let's dive into what audio and video accessibility means, why audiovisual accessibility is important, and what you can do to make your content more inclusive.

Jump to:

• What is audio and video accessibility?

• Why is video and audio accessibility important?

• How to make your content more accessible

• How making your content more accessible can help your business

Audio and video accessibility is about ensuring that everyone, including people who are deaf or hard of hearing, can engage with your content. This involves adding features like captions for videos and providing written transcripts for audio. These adjustments make your media usable by a wider audience, improving inclusivity and user experience.

Making video and audio accessible ensures that a wider audience can engage with your content, including people with hearing impairments. Everyone deserves equal access to digital media, and focusing on accessibility promotes inclusivity.

There are also global standards, like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which set the global benchmark for web accessibility. These guidelines recommend providing transcripts for all pre-recorded audio and captions for all pre-recorded videos to meet accessibility requirements.

Here are five ways to make your audio and video content more accessible:

Captions are essential for making video content accessible, whether it's for social media, training material, or your company's website. Ideally, captions should be synchronized with the audio and users should have the ability to toggle them on or off. By providing this option, you accommodate people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or simply in environments where they can't use sound. You can find captioning standards and guidelines on the W3C website to ensure your captions meet accessibility requirements.

Learn how to add captions to videos with our step-by-step guide.

Audio-to-text transcriptions should be shared alongside both audio and video files so that users have all the information needed to understand the content.

You could include basic transcripts - a text version of the spoken content - or descriptive transcripts - which also include a written description of any visual content that might be needed to understand video. Descriptive video transcripts are designed for people who are both deaf and blind.

You could upload these transcripts to your website, and even make them available as a downloadable file.

Discover how to transcribe audio files with our handy guide.

A good media player plays a vital role in accessibility. It should be easy to use and allow users to pause, rewind, and fast forward when needed. Users should also be able to adjust the volume, text style, and caption positioning to suit their preferences and to make the experience of watching your video as manageable and enjoyable as possible.

If your content has a global audience, consider offering multi-language transcripts and captions to accommodate non-native speakers. By providing translations in multiple languages, you demonstrate inclusivity and make your content accessible to a broader demographic.

Find out how to generate multilingual transcripts using our free transcript translation tool.

If in doubt, refer to the WCAG to make your content fully compliant with the international accessibility standards.

Whether you're creating content for your business or a personal podcast, making your audio and video content more accessible can have a range of benefits:

Greater inclusivity is ethically important, and it also protects you from legal risks related to discrimination. Inclusivity also boosts customer trust and loyalty, showing that your business values all individuals.

According to the World Health Organization, there are more than 1.5 billion people globally living with hearing loss. This is an enormous population that your business can reach by making your content more accessible. Accessible content also benefits non-native speakers, helping to expand your reach even further.

Thanks to advancements in AI-powered transcription tools like Transcribe, making your content accessible is easier than ever. Download the Transcribe app or launch the online editor to get started.