Instructional Capabilities of Video
As a digital medium, video combines the power of visual and auditory information in a way that can provide a deeply engaging and provocative experience for the viewer.
Video can be especially powerful as an instructional material as the synchronicity of auditory and visual information creates a stronger cognitive impact for the viewer, resulting in an ease and immediacy of understanding for many viewers.
The ability to structure layers of information lends itself to portraying complex information that can be comprehended in a more time-efficient way. Adding the elements of dramatic context and storytelling allows for the communication of attitude and emotions in a particularly powerful way.
The point for instructional video accessibility is to determine if any of these information channels carry significant instructional content.
In other words, “Will this be on the test?”
If so, it needs to be communicated explicitly across the auditory and visual channels.
Video is Complex
As a medium, digital video covers a lot of categories of communication. Most obviously, video can provide a visual demonstration of procedures, as well as principles and concepts spelled out in text and illustrated in motion. Audio information can supplement and reinforce the visual information, as well as provide additional information beyond what is being displayed. The subtle integration of visual information in background elements and scenery can also reinforce and supplement information while post-production graphic overlays, closed captioning, and narrative description also provide additional channels for communication.
Basic Production Concerns
The quality of video and audio production is an accessibility concern. Audible and visual static, noise, insufficient volume, or weak lighting can all exacerbate problems of perception for people with visual or auditory disabilities.
Access Strategies
The access strategies for video are easy to state, but can be rather varied in their application.
In a nutshell, to make a video accessible requires captions and narrative descriptions. Essentially, the spectrum of information for the visual sense is portrayed through audio narrative description and the spectrum of information for the auditory sense is portrayed through captions.
Caption Complications
Not all digital video formats are capable of supporting caption files, sometimes the captions need to be included as separate files that the video player combines in the final playback.
Closed vs Open Captions
Most people are aware of Closed Captions, but have you ever heard of Open Captions?
Open Captions are a thing. The difference between Open Captions and Closed Captions is that Closed Captions can be turned on or off, while Open Captions are always visible on the screen.
There is such variety in video playback options that some people use Open Captions to avoid any problem with a student not being able to turn captions on if they need them.
As technology continues to improve, using Closed Captions is the preferred solution. If possible, ensure your institution utilizes an accessible video player within your LMS so your students have an accessible option that supports closed captions.
Emerging Narrative Descriptions
Like captions, narrative description is not always supported with the native video file. It is a relatively new advent for most people as a form of accommodation, and is still relatively uncommon for a lot of small production studios.
In many cases, adding narrative descriptions to older videos can be extra problematic in terms of technology and in finding time to squeeze in the descriptions between the spoken dialog.
Like so many accessibility practices, narrative description is more easily handled when it is included in the video planning and production instead of being added as a post-production element.
Text Transcript
While the optimum access strategies for video are captions and narrative descriptions, the value of a text transcript can not be overstated. While a text transcript is not an acceptable substitute for captions, it can be very useful when studying material.
Captions vs. Subtitles
Traditionally there have been different technologies used for displaying captions and subtitles. The digital video revolution also added some variety and chaos to the industry.
There is also a technical distinction between subtitles and captions that makes a significant difference in the effectiveness of the two as an accommodation.
Captions portray all the dialog as well as sound effects, and they are always in the same language as the spoken dialog.
Subtitles only portray the spoken dialog, and they are usually in a foreign language.
This distinction was not always known or respected by the producers of DVD’s and Video, and sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. Sometimes you will find “Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing” which are effectively captions.
Playback Support
There is still an issue for accessible video after the creation of captions and narrative descriptions, in the need for an accessible video player.
Not all video players support captioning or narrative description, making it impossible to turn the captions or description on.
In addition to limited support for captions and narrative descriptions, many video players are not keyboard accessible either.
Happily, there are a growing number of options for playing back accessible video with captions and narrative descriptions.
Two of my favorite options for playing accessible video:
Able Player – completely accessible and free HTML5 player.
Oz Player – completely accessible HTML5 video player.
Getting Accessible Video
Not surprisingly, it is possible to pay a vendor to provide captions and narrative descriptions for your instructional videos. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.
The time and effort that goes into creating captions and narrative descriptions can be surprisingly intensive. However, if you have the desire and the time, there are free tools available to do it yourself.
YouTube and Vimeo
When using other people’s video from the Internet, the same rules apply, plus copyright law. Using videos from YouTube and Vimeo still need to have captions and narrative descriptions. The auto-captions of YouTube are not done to a level of acceptable quality for a legal accommodation, but they can be edited and improved on.
I’ll be covering YouTube captioning and additional workflows for creating your own captions over the next couple of days.
Thanks for reading!