Accessible Content: What Actually Matters
Subtitles, contrast and descriptions don't only serve people with disabilities. They serve anyone watching without sound.
Accessibility is often treated as a compliance task. It's also a practical choice: a large share of people watch videos without sound, on the move, on small screens and in poor light. The same measures serve both groups.
The four with the highest return
- Subtitles on video: used by people who can't hear and by people who can't turn the volume up.
- Sufficient contrast between text and background: for impaired vision and for bright sunlight.
- Alternative text on images that carry information: read by screen readers and by search engines.
- Headings in proper order, not just larger text: allows navigation without sight.
Automatic subtitles aren't enough
They get proper nouns, technical terms and punctuation wrong, and punctuation changes meaning. A two-minute review on a thirty-second video fixes nearly all of it.
What not to do
Entrust information to colour alone, sound alone or motion alone. If something matters it has to be available in at least two ways, otherwise part of the audience never receives it.
Useful alternative text
It describes what the image communicates, not what it contains. For a product photograph what counts is the detail being shown, not a list of objects in frame. Purely decorative images need no description.
Someone watching on a train and someone who can't hear need the same thing: content that works without sound.
Sources and Further Reading
Official documentation and guidelines cited or useful for going deeper.