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Re: Styling of video captions

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Apr 13, 2018 11:20AM

The client is saying there are no options for the caption background - it is what it is, and the Vimeo Help pages seem to support this view. A little research suggests that some user agents (specifically iOS) provide the ability to change the caption styling but I don't know if this is the case with other user agents. It makes sense to me that it should be set at the operating system level rather than being the author's decision.

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of glen walker
Sent: 13 April 2018 18:07
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Styling of video captions

From a usability perspective, I agree with you, but what they have now is not an accessibility issue, although the translucent background could be distracting for cognitive impairments.

I like it when videos let me choose the captioning colors, or at least give me a few choices. Would that be an option for you? Could you have an opaque and translucent option for captions? For readability, it might be better to use less technical terms and call the options 'solid background'
and 'see through background', or something like that.

Glen


On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 11:00 AM, Steve Green < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> One of my clients is adding captions to the videos on their website
> and they sent me some examples. The captions are white text on a
> mid-grey translucent background so the video content shows through a
> little. The colour contrast is fine but I feel that the translucency
> reduces the readability a little because the background colour changes
> both within a frame and over time. It's difficult for me to be
> objective now because I can't help looking for a problem, and I don't
> know if it will be a problem in practice.
>
> I told the client I would prefer the text to be on a solid background
> but they say the styling is fixed - they are using Vimeo. I can't find
> anything in WCAG that specifies any aspect of the styling of captions.
> Does anyone know of any requirements in WCAG or any other standard?
> Has anyone done any user testing with different caption styles or had any feedback from users?
>
> Regards,
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
> 020 3002 4176 (direct)
> 0800 612 2780 (switchboard)
> 07957 246 276 (mobile)
> 020 7692 5517 (fax)
> Skype: testpartners
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> www.testpartners.co.uk
>
> Connect to me on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevegreen2
>
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