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Technique G93:Providing open (always visible) captions

About this Technique

This technique relates to:

This technique applies to any synchronized media technology, even ones that do not support closed captions.

Description

The objective of this technique is to provide a way for people who are deaf or otherwise have trouble hearing the dialogue in audio visual material to be able to view the material. With this technique all of the dialogue and important sounds are embedded as text in the video track. As a result they are always visible and no special support for captioning is required by the user agent.

NOTE: Captions should not be confused with subtitles. Subtitles provide text of only the dialogue and do not include important sounds.

Examples

  • In order to ensure that everyone can view their online movies, even if users do not know how to turn on captions in their media player, a library association puts the captions directly into the video.
  • A news organization provides open captions on all of its material.

Tests

Procedure

  1. Watch the synchronized media with closed captioning turned off.
  2. Check that captions (of all dialogue and important sounds) are visible.

Expected Results

  • #2 is true

Test Rules

The following are Test Rules related to this Technique. It is not necessary to use these particular Test Rules to check for conformance with WCAG, but they are defined and approved test methods. For information on using Test Rules, see Understanding Test Rules for WCAG Success Criteria.

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