Accessibility in Webinars and Video

Looking to make your videos and webinars more accessible, inclusive, and user-friendly? You’ve come to the right place. These tips will help make your content accessible to a broader audience and comply with accessibility standards.

Start with universal design

By integrating accessibility into the planning of webinars and videos, you’re setting projects up for time and cost savings. Universal design is design that is usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. It ensures you’re thinking about accessibility from the very beginning of the process.

What does this look like in practice? Closed captioning is an important part of making accessible digital content. For example, if you’re designing captioning for an instructional video, you’ll want to make sure to choose a color-contrast compliant background for caption text. Designing a beautiful video and then realizing low-vision users won’t be able to see your captions is a costly oversight to go back and fix.

Let’s talk more about how you can plan accessibility into your webinars and videos.

Webinars

Webinars are a great example of content that requires accessibility considerations from start to finish. You’ll need to think about accessibility from the very beginning — your registration process — until the very end, when you distribute the video and its accompanying materials.

While reasonable accommodations must be provided regardless of when they are requested, you’ll want to ensure the registration process asks about accommodations and allows plenty of time for you to respond to and implement the request. Accommodations might include but are not limited to large-print documents, sign language interpreters, or live captioning. Here are some tips for building accessibility into webinars:

• Include a deadline in the registration announcement email so there is a cushion for hosts to arrange and provide accommodations. However, do not have separate registration deadlines for those who need accommodations and those who don’t.
• A best practice is to take advantage of your registration software’s logic; ask if the registrant needs an accommodation. If they answer “yes,” this can prompt the next question about what accommodation they need. If the answer “no,” the process will move on to the next question.
• If your webinar/registration platform doesn’t offer notifications for key registration data (e.g., email notifications that someone has requested an accommodation), you’ll need an internal control to ensure registrations are being reviewed for ADA requests.
• Ensure the webinar platform you’re using offers real-time captions; if not, you may need to arrange for a live captioner [Communications Access Real-time Translation (CART)].
• Provide a 508-compliant transcript following the webinar.

Video

Perhaps you offer standalone instructional videos for your partners or are sharing a recording of a webinar or other virtual event. Regardless of the content, there are several ways to make videos more accessible.

• Include captions, which can be open or closed. Open captions are a permanent part of the video. If you’re designing your video to include them, don’t forget to ensure the font and background meet color contrast requirements. Closed captions, which are more common, can be turned on and off. Most video platforms provide AI captions but also allow you to upload an edited version of the captions to ensure clarity and accuracy.
• Offer audio descriptions for viewers who are blind or have low vision. A descriptive audio track provides additional information that supports understanding of what’s happening on screen.
• Your video should be navigable by keyboard. Users with motor impairments may not use a mouse. Options to start, pause, adjust volume, and other video player functions should be accessible by the keyboard alone.
• Don’t forget to include a transcript. Not only does the transcript provide users with another way to access your content, but it also aids in search engine optimization when posted online, bringing more traffic to your resource.

By incorporating these accessibility features into your webinars and online videos, you’re ensuring your products reach the widest possible audience.