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Thread: Alt Text vs AD
Number of posts in this thread: 7 (In chronological order)
From: Starry_sky
Date: Thu, Oct 13 2022 12:16PM
Subject: Alt Text vs AD
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Hello everyone, some of us are discussing the differences (if any)
between alternative text vs audio description. Does anyone see them as
the same? If different, how so? Thanks for any input to diffuse the
difference of opinion. Thanks.
From: Uniquely Abled
Date: Thu, Oct 13 2022 2:55PM
Subject: Re: Alt Text vs AD
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Audio description isn't on a website or part of an image, alt text is.
On 10/13/22, = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hello everyone, some of us are discussing the differences (if any)
> between alternative text vs audio description. Does anyone see them as
> the same? If different, how so? Thanks for any input to diffuse the
> difference of opinion. Thanks.
> > > > >
--
"If you want lightning to strike twice, you need to plant more
lightning rods,"-Keven J. Anderson
From: tim.harshbarger
Date: Thu, Oct 13 2022 4:07PM
Subject: Re: Alt Text vs AD
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They are the same from the viewpoint that the purpose of alt text and audio description is to convey visual information in a way that makes it possible for someone who cannot perceive that information visually.
However, they are very different when it comes to implementation. Alt text is just text--typically used to describe the important information provided by a static image. Audio description is a spoken audio track where someone describes the important visuals of a video.
Thanks!
Tim
Tim Harshbarger
Senior Accessibility Consultant
Deque
From: Steve Green
Date: Thu, Oct 13 2022 4:14PM
Subject: Re: Alt Text vs AD
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You are talking about alternatives for the visual content of time-based media or synchronised media. It's a bit complicated because it depends on a number of factors.
If you have video-only media, either a text alternative or audio description will be sufficient to conform with WCAG SC 1.2.1 (level A).
If you have synchronised media, an audio description will provide conformance with WCAG SC 1.2.3 (level A) and SC 1.2.5 (level AA).
If you have synchronised media, a text alternative will provide conformance with WCAG SC 1.2.3 (level A) but in most cases it is not sufficient for SC 1.2.5 (level AA).
The exception to the previous case is if your synchronised media contains a single talking head with no relevant information in the background. In this case, a text alternative will provide conformance with WCAG SC 1.2.3 (level A) and SC 1.2.5 (level AA).
I am sure someone will let me know if I have missed any scenarios.
Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd
From: Barry
Date: Fri, Oct 14 2022 1:20AM
Subject: Re: Alt Text vs AD
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When I first thought about it, I thought that it was the same content, just that one was text and the other spoken. However, that's quite a difference. The audio describer can nuance spoken text by pace, tone, and pitch but we can't do that with alternative text. Still, digital audio description would be much closer to alternative text.
Cheers
Barry
From: Andrews, David B (DEED)
Date: Fri, Oct 14 2022 8:17AM
Subject: Re: Alt Text vs AD
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They are very different. Generally, alt-text is for an image or graphic, and audio description is for longer things like videos where there may be a series of things to describe.
Dave
From: Mark Magennis
Date: Fri, Oct 14 2022 8:59AM
Subject: Re: Alt Text vs AD
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There's also the practical difference that audio description is embedded into time-based content so the amount that you can provide is constrained by the amount of time you have to say it. For example, suppose you're adding audio description to a movie. One character says something and pulls out a gun then another character says something. In between the two speech fragments you're going to have to provide audio description like "Jesse pulls out a gun". You might want to say more, for instance describing the gun if that's important, but you might not have enough time. With alt text on static images you can provide as much description as you want.
One solution to not having enough time for a full audio description is to pause the video while the audio description plays. You generally can't do that in movies, but for training videos, when the video shows a screenshot of a software product, you might want to give a lengthy description of the UI and you might need to pause the video to allow for that.
Mark