Techniques for WCAG 2.0

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G78: Providing a second, user-selectable, audio track that includes audio descriptions

Important Information about Techniques

See Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria for important information about the usage of these informative techniques and how they relate to the normative WCAG 2.0 success criteria. The Applicability section explains the scope of the technique, and the presence of techniques for a specific technology does not imply that the technology can be used in all situations to create content that meets WCAG 2.0.

Applicability

Applies to any technology that has a sound track and visual content.

This technique relates to:

Description

The objective of this technique is to provide an audio (spoken) version of information that is provided visually so that it is possible for people who cannot see to be able to understand audio-visual material.

Since most user agents today cannot merge multiple sound tracks, this technique adds the additional audio information to synchronized media by providing an option which allows users to replace the soundtrack with a new copy of the original soundtrack that has the additional audio description added. This added information focuses on actions, characters, scene changes and on-screen text (not captions) that are important to understanding the content.

Since it is not helpful to have this new information obscure key audio information in the original sound track (or be obscured by loud sound effects), the new information is added during pauses in dialogue and sound effects. This limits the amount of supplementary information that can be added to the program.

The soundtrack with the audio description (of visual information) can either be an alternate sound track that the user can choose, or it can be the standard sound track that everyone hears.

Examples

Resources

Resources are for information purposes only, no endorsement implied.

Tests

Procedure

  1. Check that the ability exists to turn on the audio track that includes audio descriptions. For example, by using a control within the content itself or by selecting a control or preference in the media player or operating system.

  2. Listen to the synchronized media

  3. Check to see if gaps in dialogue are used to convey important information regarding visual content

Expected Results

If this is a sufficient technique for a success criterion, failing this test procedure does not necessarily mean that the success criterion has not been satisfied in some other way, only that this technique has not been successfully implemented and can not be used to claim conformance.