Accessibility and inclusion

Responsible content reaches everyone it is meant for. A large share of the audience has a disability that affects how they see, hear, move or process information, and many more people use accessibility features in everyday situations, such as watching with the sound off on a bus. Accessibility is partly a legal matter, but for most creators it is mainly about good practice and a bigger, more loyal audience. This lesson covers captions and transcripts, audio description, alt text, visual design and contrast, plain language, inclusive representation, and the legal context in Canada and the US.

Who benefits

Statistics Canada's 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability found that 27 % of Canadians aged 15 and older, about 8 million people, had one or more disabilities. Disabilities related to pain, flexibility, mobility and mental health were most common, and seeing, hearing, learning and memory disabilities each affected large numbers of people. Many more people benefit from accessible design without having a disability: viewers watching without sound, people learning English or French, older viewers and people with temporary injuries.

A useful idea is the curb-cut effect. Curb cuts were designed for wheelchair users, but they also help people with strollers, luggage and bicycles. Captions work the same way: they serve Deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and also help everyone in noisy places, viewers with different accents and people searching for content, because captions make videos more discoverable.

Captions and transcripts

Captions are the single most important accessibility feature for video. Automatic captions have improved greatly, but they still make errors with names, technical terms, accents and overlapping speech, and they rarely include non-speech information. Good captions are accurate, synchronized, complete and readable.

Caption reading speed is commonly measured in characters per second. Guidelines vary, but many broadcasters and streaming services aim for roughly 15 to 20 characters per second for adults and slower for children's content. A full transcript, posted on a website or in a description, helps people who use screen readers or braille displays and makes content searchable.

Audio description

Audio description narrates important visual information for blind and partially sighted viewers: actions, scene changes, on-screen text and facial expressions that the audio alone does not convey. For many creator videos, the most practical approach is described video built into the main audio: saying aloud what you are doing and reading out on-screen text, for example "I'm adding two cups of flour" rather than "I'm adding this". Some platforms also support separate audio description tracks.

• Read aloud important on-screen text, such as prices, steps and links.
• Describe key actions and visuals when they matter to understanding.
• Avoid relying on phrases like "as you can see" or "this one" without saying what it is.

Alt text and image descriptions

Alt text is a short written description of an image that screen readers read aloud. Most platforms let creators add alt text to images and some to thumbnails. Good alt text describes what is important about the image in context, briefly, without starting with "image of". For complex images such as charts, include the key point the image shows, as this course does for its figures.

Visual design and contrast

Text on screen, thumbnails and graphics must be readable for people with low vision or colour vision deficiencies. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), published by the World Wide Web Consortium, are the international standard. Version 2.2, published in October 2023, keeps the contrast rules from earlier versions: a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text and 3 to 1 for large text at level AA.

The contrast ratio compares the relative luminance, or perceived brightness, of the lighter and darker colours:

where \( L_1 \) is the relative luminance of the lighter colour and \( L_2 \) of the darker, each between 0 for black and 1 for white. Free contrast checkers calculate it from colour codes.

Other visual practices help too: do not rely on colour alone to convey meaning, avoid rapidly flashing content, which can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy (WCAG sets a limit of three flashes in any one second), and keep on-screen text large enough to read on a phone.

Plain language

Plain language means writing and speaking so that the audience can understand information the first time. It helps people with cognitive and learning disabilities, people reading in a second language and busy viewers. Readability formulas give a rough measure. The Flesch Reading Ease score, for example, is:

Higher scores mean easier text; scores of 60 to 70 are generally considered plain English for adults.

Inclusive representation

Inclusion is broader than technical accessibility. It includes who appears in content, how they are portrayed and whose stories are told. Practices include featuring people with disabilities as full participants rather than as inspiration for non-disabled viewers, avoiding stereotypes about any group, asking communities how they prefer to be described, and paying collaborators from under-represented groups fairly. Disabled creators have criticized content that presents disability mainly as tragedy or as a feel-good moment for others; letting people tell their own stories avoids this.

The legal context

In Canada, the Accessible Canada Act of 2019 requires federally regulated organizations, such as banks, broadcasters and telecommunications companies, to identify and remove barriers and publish accessibility plans. The CRTC sets captioning and described video requirements for broadcasters, and the Online Streaming Act gives it powers over online services. Provinces have their own laws: Ontario's Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act requires many organizations to make websites meet WCAG 2.0 level AA, and Manitoba, Nova Scotia and British Columbia have accessibility laws too. Most individual creators are not directly covered, but brands and broadcasters who commission creator content often are, and they increasingly require accessible deliverables.

An accessibility audit

Accessibility in livestreams and short video

Livestreams and short videos raise particular challenges. Live captions generated automatically are often the only practical option for streams, so speaking clearly, avoiding talking over others and repeating viewers' questions aloud improves their accuracy. For short vertical video, keep captions away from the areas covered by platform buttons and descriptions, use large text and give viewers enough time to read on-screen text before cutting away. Many short-video apps offer automatic captions that creators can edit before posting; editing them takes a minute and greatly improves accuracy, especially for names and technical terms.

Asking your audience

The best way to find out whether content is accessible is to ask the people who use accessibility features. Invite feedback in descriptions or community posts, respond to requests for captions or descriptions, and consider paying disabled consultants to review content or templates. Disabled viewers often notice barriers that creators never would, and acting on their feedback signals that the channel values them.

Inclusive language

Inclusive language avoids excluding or stereotyping people. Practical habits include using gender-neutral terms where gender is unknown or irrelevant, avoiding phrases that treat disability as a metaphor for something negative, describing people by their own preferred terms and avoiding jokes that rely on stereotypes. Communities differ in their preferences: some disabled people prefer person-first language, such as "person with a disability", while others, including many Deaf and autistic people, prefer identity-first language. When in doubt, ask or follow the person's own usage.

Accessibility is also a craft skill that improves with practice. Once captions, spoken descriptions and good contrast become routine, they add little time to production and make every video better for everyone.