You’ve probably encountered some form of audio descriptions when watching videos in your free time, but what exactly are audio descriptions, and how do they differ from closed captions and subtitles? In this article, we will take you through the fundamentals of video accessibility, the importance of audio descriptions, and how you can deploy audio descriptions for your videos using YuJa Lumina.
Audio Descriptions – What are They?
Audio descriptions, closed captions, and subtitles are all tools used to advance video accessibility and help viewers understand the contents of a video. However, they are not interchangeable tools, and serve different purposes catered to different needs.
- Closed captions, or captions, render all audio components ranging from character speech to environmental sounds into text for the viewer to read while the video is playing. Unlike subtitles, which are direct transcriptions of spoken dialogue, closed captions contain crucial information related to events happening in the video and help the viewer understand missing contexts that improve their understanding. Examples of events described in closed captions include background music, character expressions, and sound effects. You can read more about closed captions here.
- Audio descriptions narrate the visual events of a video in a speech format to help viewers who may require assistive technologies understand the contents of a video through audio channels. They are often placed in between pauses of narration to provide contextual information, and are sometimes overlaid on top of existing audio tracks when necessary. Audio descriptions can also be used in non-video mediums, such as in a museum exhibition, and are used to explain establishments and artworks for tourists.
What Should Audio Descriptions Actually Describe?
Audio descriptions help viewers understand backgrounds, character movements, facial expressions, scene changes, and other visual elements. They should describe any contextual cues that can be interpreted from an on-screen action and refrain from being limited to narrations of events that can be seen. Examples of elements that should be described include:
- On-screen objects, characters, and graphics
- Scene and speaker changes
- Facial expressions, body language, and gestures
- Details that impact the story, such as costume changes, location changes, character actions, etc.
Audio descriptions should be objective and avoid any assumptions and bias that could change the narrative, as this could potentially mislead the audience and compromise the effectiveness of the accommodation tool.
How Do Audio Descriptions Improve Accessibility?
Audio descriptions mainly help viewers who have low vision or are visually impaired and require assistive tools to understand visual content. By verbally explaining the visual contents of a video, audio descriptions help viewers who may have vision problems understand videos from alternative channels. Audio descriptions can also benefit other users who may have difficulty interpreting emotional cues or ambiguous character behaviors. To ensure that your videos are accessible to a wide range of viewers, you should always add closed captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions to your videos to accommodate various needs.
How YuJa Helps You Create Audio Descriptions for Your Video Content
Users can attach or generate accurate and detailed scene narrations using YuJa Lumina’s Enhanced Audio Descriptions feature, effectively providing context to individuals who may require additional support understanding video content. YuJa’s AI-generated Enhanced Audio Descriptions will also automatically pause the video to avoid competing with the original audio track, helping organizations meet WCAG requirements while maintaining the integrity of the source content. Specifically, this helps ensure that your video meets WCAG Success Criterion 1.2.5, which requires that audio descriptions be provided within appropriate pauses in dialogue. You can learn more about SC 1.2.5 here.
With the recent v26.4.0 release, users can also toggle auto-scrolling in the editor for a synchronized editing experience and ensure that audio descriptions move in time with the video. This enhancement helps users provide different accessibility accommodations to a range of audiences in a consolidated workflow that is simple and efficient. You can read more about YuJa Lumina’s Enhanced Audio Descriptions here.
