ADA Compliance Should Include Online Videos
January 26, 2023
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990 to guarantee equal access and opportunity for those with disability in state or local government services, employment, public accommodations, commercial facilities, and transportation.
ADA compliance affects both public and private entities across the United States by providing individuals with disabilities the same level of rights as any other American citizen.
The Department of Justice has been actively promoting ADA compliance on the Internet since the early 2000s and considers video accessibility to be an important part of a disabled user’s online experience for exploring websites and social media platforms.
The goal of the DOJ is to ensure that all web functions, regardless of their purpose and services, are accessible to individuals with disabilities. This includes access to public services, accommodations, and other activities as outlined in the Act. As part of that effort, DOJ has adopted updated standards and guidelines for online videos.
Online Video Content Is on the Rise
People are generally spending more of their time online and any entities providing public services have an obligation to ensure that no citizen is prevented from accessing the content they provide. Video content, in particular, has seen a substantial rise in popularity in recent years, and as such, captions can be used to make this content accessible to those who are deaf or hard of hearing. Although these guidelines are essential for government agencies, all companies and organizations wanting to reach the public can benefit as well.
ADA requirements for online accessibility are detailed in the most recent Title III regulations, which require that all content be captioned or have an alternative to captions available for those who are unable to access the content due to a disability. This includes making sure captioning software is installed on any computers used for media production, ensuring that captions are accurate and synchronized with the audio, and providing a text alternative such as an audio description or transcripts for videos where captions cannot be applied.
Best Practices & Video Captioning Standards
A growing number of companies like Netflix and Hulu are offering captions for their streaming services, which is great news for deaf and hard of hearing viewers. Although the ADA does not specify closed captioning as a best practice, videos can be captioned according to the WCAG 2.0 Level AA, as an acceptable standard. Below are some generally accepted principles used by different industries:
- Precisely time-synch captions to each speaker’s audio file.
- Spelling of captions should be accurate and correctly worded.
- Punctuation should only be used for clarity not conventional text style.
- Captions can contain both upper and lowercase letters.
- Use a non-serif font that is easy to see like Calibri or Arial.
- Captions should not block other onscreen text or critical visual elements.
- Frames should be one to three lines and limit # of characters per frame.
- Captions should be viewable for about five seconds before being replaced.
- Identify who is speaking on video, especially with multiple speakers.
- Put non-speech sounds like a [Pause] or [Music] in square brackets.
- Captions should identify a speaker's accent and oddities like slang.
The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) reached a settlement with M.I.T. and Harvard University after lawsuits were filed against the private institutions and both were found to have violated both the ADA and 1973 Rehabilitation Act for failing to provide audio tracks and closed captions for online educational content. Since the NAD's grievances for web accessibility are justified, anyone with an online presence may soon have to meet the anti-discriminatory standards established by the ADA.
Transcription, Captioning and Subtitling Services
Improving the overall online experience for users with disabilities is a positive step forward and an important opportunity for institutions, businesses, and organizations to increase web traffic to their websites and social media platforms. Here at ProLingo, we are very familiar with meeting the WCAG 2.0 and WCAG 2.1 standards recommended by the DOJ for content accessibility. In most cases, audio files are readily available on most computers and cellphones for sight-impaired video users.
In today’s multimedia environment, deaf and hard of hearing users have the same needs as anyone else seeking access to information on the web and definitely should be able to participate equally in all aspects of our online society. With the DOJ broadening the scope of Title II and Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, it certainly makes good business sense to focus on the latest captioning standards and provide closed captions in multiple languages when hosting multilingual video presentations and events.
ProLingo is fully prepared to help you take full advantage of improving your online presence with multilingual usability for deaf and hard of hearing individuals through our interpretation, transcription, captioning, and subtitling services.
