Accessible videos and webinars are essential for inclusive teaching and learnng, and benefit everyone. Depending on the content of your media, think about captions/subtitles (a text version of the audio that is synchronised with the content being shown via the media player), a transcript (a separate text version of the audio), audio description of visual information (usually an additional audio stream that describes important visual content), or other accessibility functionality/features. 

The University of Kent Inclusive Practices has useful advice where they start by saying “The ability to access video can vary depending on your situation. If you’re working in a noisy environment or break your arm, you will have different needs. And so, while digital accessibility is essential for people with sight, hearing, mobility or print disabilities, everyone else will benefit from video that is optimised for accessibility. It offers flexibility for people to access it their way.”

Considerations

• Host videos on accessible players and in a format and location that supports captions. Some media players and video hosting providers do not support captions 
• Making captions with free applications such as Amara.org, DotSub.com or Subtitle Horse. 
• Add Audio descriptions that describe content that is only presented visually and 3playmedia describe how they are made. 
• Playing video with text-based audio descriptions if you have a media player that supports this feature, such as Able Player
• Adding transcripts that capture all content.  The spoken audio, plus on-screen text and descriptions of key visual information are needed as they wouldn’t otherwise be accessible without seeing the video.

Additional Resources

• WebAIM on Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions for videos and audio
• W3C WAI ‘Making Audio and Video Media Accessible‘ 
• Bureau of Internet Accessibility (USA) offer other useful ideas in their ‘Checklist for Creating Accessible Videos’