WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Alternative presentation of content

for

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Jan 3, 2018 8:49PM

Alan,

It seems like there may be some confusion about the captions/transcript you are talking about. I may misunderstand your question -- but based on what I think you are saying If you have audio and text on the screen that the screen reader can access then there is no requirement to make the audio into text for a screen reader user under the current standards.

The group of users that is likely to have the issue is users who are deaf or hard of hearing including people who are deafblind who may not have access to what is spoken in the audio that is different than what is on-screen. For this group of users they will want synchronized text (if the visual and audio are synchronized) or transcript (if synchronization is not used)

If the content is slide based with next buttons without any real synchronization -- text is on-screen and there is audio then you likely can make a case to display a pop-up with the audio as text presented in a box that doesn't cover the visual content.

Again, I can't say for sure without looking at your situation -- so these are just some initial thoughts based on what you describe.

Jonathan

Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
Level Access, inc. (formerly SSB BART Group, inc.)
(703) 637-8957
<EMAIL REMOVED>
Visit us online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Blog
Looking to boost your accessibility knowledge? Check out our free webinars!

The information contained in this transmission may be attorney privileged and/or confidential information intended for the use of the individual or entity named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Alan Zaitchik
Sent: Wednesday, January 3, 2018 3:24 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] Alternative presentation of content

We have a problem developing a Lectora-based presentation in which on-screen information is not the same as what is read in an audio track on the page. The transcripts for each audio do not therefore deliver equivalent information since they do not include the on-screen text. Changing either the on-screen text or the audio (and transcript) is not possible, alas.

So…

One idea we had was to write a text-only equivalent version for each slide's screen+audio; we would make this equivalent presentation available through an "accessible version" icon (control) on each page; the icon is initially hidden but a sight-impaired user will have been told to find the control by tabbing to it; the icon/control becomes active (and visible) when given focus; when clicked it causes the screen reader to read the equivalent content. For users who may not have a screen reader but who need this alternative we can display the text-only version as an overlay.

Would this be considered an alternative presentation of content?

Thanks for your input!

Alan Zaitchik
Center For Social Innovation