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Welcome to part three of LSNTAP's web accessibility series! Today, let's talk about multimedia
content. Basically, you just want to make sure that
non-text elements on your site are accessible to the blind and deaf populations. For images,
this means including descriptive alt text. Alt text is the little tag that appears when
you hover your mouse over an image, and can be read by a screen reader. This is different
from a caption. Making it descriptive means conveying whatever story the image tells in
words. Also, make sure that any text you include
-- whether links, headers, other decoration, or actual content -- is formatted as text
and is not an image. Images cannot be read by screen readers.
For videos or other audio content, make sure that you include captions which overlay the
video (as in, they're not embedded in the image) or a transcript. YouTube does a pretty
good job automatically captioning videos, but double check it because it's not perfect.
Make sure that all the content conveyed with audio is available as text, whether through
a transcript, an accompanying article, or some other method.
Also for audio content, WCAG advises that foreground audio is at least 20 decibels louder
than background audio, and that the user should be able to adjust volume. Basically, it should
be easy to hear the video's content without too much interference.
That's all for now on multimedia content. Keep watching for helpful hints on color contrast!