Creating Accessible Videos

Every time you create a video to be shared with others, you will need to follow a few simple instructions to ensure that video is properly captioned. This will make your content more usable for all viewers, including people who:

• Are trying to listen in a noisy environment.
• Have hearing loss or impairments.
• Prefer to read captions due to the way they learn and absorb content.
• Are non-native speakers.
• Are having trouble understanding the speaker for any reason.

Always provide captions. 

You must caption any and all videos you plan to ask others to watch or otherwise engage with, such as those created for:

• Websites, Apps and Digital Tools of Any Kind
• Social Media Posts
• Emails
• Course and Classroom Materials 

Include non-speech sounds in your captions.

Be sure to caption noises too! Music, applause, laughter, nature sounds, sound effects, etc. all communicate information in your video. Those who can’t hear the video won’t know about those sounds unless you tell them in your captions by putting these sounds in brackets as they play. For example: [Laughter] or [Applause].  

 

Add Captions More Quickly

If you need to add captions to a video after it's been recorded, we recommend uploading the video to Microsoft Stream using your Teams account to add auto-captions to your video. You will still need to review the captions and make corrections, but Teams' captioning accuracy is some of the very best for auto-captioning software.

Using Microsoft Stream for Captions and Transcripts

 

Audio Files

If you are sharing an audio-only file like a podcast or another  audio recording, you should provide a transcript of the audio via an accessible document or on a web page. The link to your transcript should be readily available from the screen where you are sharing the audio file.

Music

If you need to share an audio file that is all or mostly music, include the lyrics of the song in an accessible document or on a web page.

 

Captioning & Transcript Considerations