Closed Captioning and Audio Transcription

The Usable Materials Center provides closed captioning and audio transcription services for multi-media content for the NAU campus community. Captions allow Deaf or Hard-0f-Hearing viewers to understand the spoken content of videos by displaying words in sync with the audio. NAU follows the WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)  for closed captions. These guidelines require that captions are accurate, synchronized with the audio content, placed on the screen so they do not block visual content, and include all relevant sounds. The Usable Materials Center adheres to the following best practices when captioning multi-media content:

• Each caption frame holds 1 to 3 lines of text onscreen at a time, viewable for approximately 3 – 7 seconds.
• Each captioned line does not exceed 32 characters.
• Each caption frame is replaced by another caption.
• Caption frames are precisely time‐synched to the audio.
• A caption frame is repositioned on the screen if it obscures onscreen text or other essential visual elements.
• Captions (including spelling) are at least 99% accurate.
• When multiple speakers are present, the person speaking is identified if possible.
• Both upper and lowercase letters are used.
• The caption font is a non‐serif, such as Helvetica medium.
•  Non‐speech sounds like [MUSIC] or [LAUGHTER] are added in square brackets.
• Punctuation is used for maximum clarity in the text, not necessarily for textbook style.
•  Captions preserve and identify slang or accents.

Automatically-generated captions do not meet user needs or accessibility requirements, unless they are confirmed to be fully accurate. In most video players, clicking the CC button will indicate whether captions are auto‑generated.  For example, some common video websites provide automatic captions. However, when the automatic caption text is wrong and does not match the spoken audio; it could change the meaning of the content. For example, missing just one word such as “not” can make the captions contradict the actual audio content.

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