This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung →
Accessibility
Why do videos on the website need captions?
Videos need captions because deaf and hard-of-hearing people can't hear the audio — and because many visitors play videos muted anyway, on the train, say. Captions display everything spoken and important sounds as text on screen. The rule applies to all recorded videos with sound on your website.
Captions reach more visitors than the audio does
A brand film on your homepage tells the story of what your company stands for in ninety seconds. Without captions, that message passes by anyone who can't hear the sound, or doesn't want to right now — and there are many of those: visitors in a waiting room, in an open-plan office, in the evening next to a sleeping child. Captions render not just the speech, but also meaningful sounds, such as "(phone ringing)". There's an important difference from mere translation: accessibility captions also name who's speaking when that isn't visible. Platforms like YouTube generate automatic captions — usable as a rough draft, but they absolutely must be corrected before publishing.
How our measurement engine checks captions
Our automated check looks more closely than usual: it looks for a caption track on every video on the page, actually downloads the corresponding caption file, and checks whether it contains real text entries with timestamps. An empty file, or one that's only formally linked, therefore doesn't pass — the mere existence of a caption reference isn't evidence for us. Only if every video file found has a loaded, filled caption track does the criterion count as passed. With embedded third-party players — a YouTube window, say — the automation can't see inside the player; then the report marks the criterion as "manual review", and at the Gold Standard level a human checks.
- Play every video on your website muted once — do you fully understand the content through the captions?
- Correct automatically generated captions before the video goes live — names and technical terms are often wrong there.
- Ask your video production team to supply captions as a separate track, not burned into the picture.
- Add meaningful sounds in brackets in the captions, such as "(applause)".
- For embedded YouTube videos, check whether captions can be turned on in the player.
FAQ
Are automatic YouTube captions good enough?
As a rough draft, yes; as a final version, rarely. Automatic captions mix up names, technical terms, and numbers, and leave out speaker changes. For a corporate video, you should review and correct the automatic version once — for a short video that takes only a few minutes and prevents embarrassing mistakes.
How does the audit service check whether a video has captions?
The automated check looks for the caption track on every video, downloads the file, and checks whether it contains real text entries with timestamps. An empty reference isn't enough. The automation can't see inside embedded third-party players such as YouTube — a human checks there at the Gold Standard level.
Are captions burned permanently into the picture enough?
They're better than nothing, but a separate caption track is the cleaner solution: visitors can turn it on and off, adjust the font size, and screen readers can read it. Burned-in captions also can't be translated and quickly become unreadable on small screens.