Hear+Ye,+Hear+Ye

**Hear Ye, Hear Ye **By Renae Williams While a sighted, hearing impaired user will be able to view and understand visual content, all audio podcast content is inaccessible to these users. Therefore, all video podcasts should include accompanying captions of the audio content. Captions should play in sync with the podcast, and transcripts should be available from the same web source offering the podcast.

The World Wide Web, perhaps more than any interface before it, presents an incredible opportunity to people with disabilities. In addition to providing a communication procedure that is naturally accessible and relatively easy to use, people with disabilities find that they can pursue education, employment and entrepreneurial opportunities never before thought possible. However opportunity always implies challenge. One of those challenges is found in the current evolution of the Web: moving it from a text-based interface to a multimedia environment. It is this environment that presents barriers to the deaf. For example, each time a web site includes a video clip which also includes sound, the deaf are locked out.

The solution is relatively simple: implement closed captioning. You may know that captioning is now an industry standard for televisions. As a result, you see televisions with built in captioning functionality. When a user clicks on the captioning indicator the script of the clip is displayed. It can be done for web users also. ”The key principles to ensure accessibility and ease of use when designing websites for users who are hearing impaired are: captioning video content and providing text translations of the spoken word. Not every Internet user has the ability to hear the words you are trying to say. With the popularity of video and spoken multimedia being added to websites, the hearing impaired visitor will find great benefit from adding a few or all of these text or visually based versions of your audio on the site.”

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Captioning on the web is an ideal solution for auditory challenges. Captioning falls into several different categories, based on the format of the captions: closed or open captions, and transcripts.

Closed captions are typically used on television. Closed captions mean the captions can be displayed whenever the viewer wants, and are built into the video. These captions are read by a decoder that is built into the television. Open captions can include the same text as closed captions, but the difference is that the text is a part of the picture. It cannot be turned on or off at the viewer’s discretion. Video on the web can be closed, open, or both. Creating captions for web video requires the use of a video encoding program, such as MAGpie, or Hi-Caption. Quicktime, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and Macromedia Flash all use various types of multimedia technology to read the captions.

Transcripts are also used to provide text for material on a website. Transcripts are a text version of the information provided on a website. The text does not have to be verbatim of the information on the website, but can be a summary, or even contain additional description of the information presented. Transcripts are useful for both auditory impairments, and visual impairments, as transcripts can be viewed in a braille format in addition to regular text.

Ideally, when creating web video, both captions and transcripts should be provided. This allows for the video to be played on a variety of technologies, and assures accessibility regardless of the delivery method.

For more information on this topic view: @http://webaim.org/techniques/captions/