Able Player, YTCA, & Video Accessibility at the University of Washington

Terrill ThompsonTechnology Accessibility Specialist

University of Washington

tft@uw.edu

http://uw.edu/accessibility

Public Videos

• 57 known UW-affiliated YouTube channels

• Over 7,000 videos

• Nearly 2,500 hours of programming

• At least 18 videos with over 100,000 views

• Cost to caption (@ $2/min) = $300,000

• Cost to describe (@ $10/min) = $1.5 Million

Lecture Capture

• As of Fall 2016:

– 58,370 videos in our system

– 9,914 videos (over 6 million minutes) viewed

• Cost to caption (@ $2/min) = $12 million

• Cost to describe (@ $10/min) = $60 million

Undue burden?

No.

Why Making Accessible Video Isn't an Undue Burden

• Cost of Producing a 10-minute

documentary-style video: $10,000

• Cost to caption (@ $2/min) = $20 (0.2%)

• Cost to describe (@ $10/min) = $100 (1%)

Why make a video if you don't want people to access it?

<video src="myvideo.mp4"></video>

You want people to play it.

<video src="myvideo.mp4" controls></video>

You want people to know what's being said.

<video src="myvideo.mp4" controls><track kind="captions" src="mycaptions.vtt">

</video>

You want people to know who's saying it.

<video src="myvideo.mp4" controls><track kind="captions" src="mycaptions.vtt"><track kind="descriptions" src="mydesc.vtt">

</video>

You want everyone to access it!

Able Player

• https://ableplayer.github.io/ableplayer

• Free, open source, HTML5 media player – Full support for HTML <track> element (captions,

subtitles, descriptions, chapters, & metadata)

– Chapters, captions, & descriptions are automatically assembled into an interactive transcript

– Fully accessible player controls

– Supports multiple versions of a video (described vs non-described); user can toggle using "Description" button

– Can play YouTube videos

How UW Does Accessible Video

• Disability Resources for Students (DRS) and Disability Services Office (DSO) provide funding and support for captioning and audio description if individuals request it as an accommodation

• UW-IT Accessible Technology Services (ATS) provides internal grant funding for making high impact videos accessible as universal design practice

• ATS provides training and support (2 staff)

Evangelizing Accessible Video

• Talking up the benefits

• Offering support – One-on-one consultation

– Group trainings

• Building Community– IT Accessibility Liaisons

– Captioning parties

• Providing resources – Website with detailed instructions

– Videos to help promote the cause

– Centralized "seed" funding

How We Manage Our Internal Captioning Grant

• UW-IT secures central pool of funding

• The word is spread through publications, talks, videos, user groups, etc.

• People apply (simple application form; no deadline)

• Applications reviewed by committee

• Priority goes to videos that are: 1. Highly visible,

2. High impact,

3. Multiple use, and/or

4. Strategic

We build tools to support our video accessibility goals

• Able Playerhttps://ableplayer.github.io/ableplayer

• YouTube Caption Auditor (YTCA)https://github.com/terrill/ytca

YTCA helps us to prioritize.

For More Information…

• UW Accessible Technology http://uw.edu/accessibility

• Creating Accessible Video http://uw.edu/accessibility/videos

• DO-IT Videoshttp://uw.edu/doit/videos