Accessibility Images and Videos

Alt Text/Alternative Text

Images must have descriptive names before they are uploaded to the CMS. All images must have alternative text. For those visually impaired, screen readers will be able to read the 'alt text' for each image.

  • The image must have descriptive text before it is uploaded. The image name is usually the same as the 'alt text'.
  • Text should be descriptive and accurately describe the image.
  • Text will display on the screen first, if there is a delay with the image load time.
  • Images that have important and informative text must include all of that information in the 'alt text'.

Learn more about alt text/alternative text for images.

Videos

Videos should ensure that all users can access the content. Accessible videos must have closed captioning. Some video hosting services, such as YouTube, may provide automatic captioning. It is important to review and update automatic closed captioning to ensure it is correct. You must edit automatic captioning to ensure accuracy.

Captions

Video captions are synchronized text form of a video. Captions enable people who are deaf or hard of hearing to read the video content. Captioning is also helpful for non-native English speakers so they can read along with the video.

Why We Need Captions
Accurate captions are required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Additionally, we find that over 10% of our audience uses captions. The quality of our captions impacts the perception of Fordham in many ways with a large part of our audience.

Where to Host Your Video
We recommend hosting your content on YouTube or Vimeo. Although YouTube offers an automatic captioning service, it is insufficient, you must edit automatic captioning to ensure accuracy. Vimeo does not offer any automatic captioning.

Where to go for Captioning Services
We recommend creating captions using a simple service called Rev. It is easy and affordable to set up an account with Rev. If your video is 30 min or shorter, they turn it around in a day. Rev is 99% accurate, but the captions should still be reviewed. Rev makes it easy to edit. There are also other services that work similarly including 3play and Amara.

For very short videos under a couple minutes, it is possible to edit YouTube captions, however, the process is tedious if your video is more than a minute or two long.

Downloading the Captions
Once the captions are done and have been reviewed, we recommend you review it then download it from Rev as an .srt file. This is a simple process.

Adding the Captions In YouTube
When you upload the video to YouTube, you will see an "UPLOAD SUBTITLES/CC" feature under "More Options". Click "UPLOAD SUBTITLES/CC" and choose "With Timing" and then upload your .srt file.

Adding the Captions in Vimeo
When you upload the video, click "Distribution" on the left-hand menu and you will have the option to upload "Subtitles and Captions." Upload the .srt file as "Captions" and then be sure to toggle it on.

What Needs To Be Captioned
In addition to the words spoken, critical content should also be captioned. For example, if your video includes a PowerPoint slide that shows a graph of a rate of something increasing and the presenter says "see here," we will need to describe what is being viewed. It is best practice for the presenter to say, "As you can see here, the rate of increase from 2005 to 2010 accelerated from 10% in 2005 to 30% in 2010" for example. This way the captioning of what is said will actually describe the content accurately. Even better, keep the slides to a bare minimum and describe all core information instead of showing it.

Captioning Resources

View Creating Accessible Videos Webinar

Include closed captioning for videos with instrumental music, this way the spiders will not catch these videos as well.

Enter the following phrase into the caption area:
♪ Instrumental music with no lyrics. ♪

For additional information and questions about video captions, please contact University Marketing at [email protected].