How to Make Video and Audio Accessible

Video and audio content on your website must have text alternatives to ensure that it is fully accessible to all visitors, including:

  • the visually or hearing impaired
  • users on cell phones or who have limited bandwidth
  • users who do not have sound capabilities and who therefore may be unable to listen to your video unless you supply a textual alternative; e.g., users in libraries
  • search engines that access and index multimedia information

Alternatives to text for all non-text content include posting a transcript for or adding captions to any video you make publicly available.

Required by New York State

New York State policy mandates that all web-based information and applications meet accessibility requirements in compliance with Federal Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Help with Alternatives to Text

The Commission of Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing Minnesotans also has produced an excellent, free online course on video captioning. It details the relevant legal standards and public-outreach considerations, explores available tools and gives you the knowledge to use them efficiently.

Some of these files require Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can download Acrobat Reader from Adobe's website.