Accessible multimedia: WCAG and beyond

Accessibility for people who create or work with video, audio, or motion graphics

WCAG is very specific as to what we must do to our video and audio multimedia files in order to meet conformance. And beyond WCAG’s technical requirements, there are powerful strategies we can embrace to make our video and audio, both live and recorded, more powerful and discoverable, and less expensive to produce. Whether you are conceptualizing, designing, producing, or delivering multimedia or motion graphics, we’ll equip you with the techniques to ensure that everyone in your audience gets what they need — while meeting or exceeding all applicable standards and regulations for audio description, captions, and descriptive text transcripts.

For a fully keyboard-accessible alternative for this video, either view it in Chrome or any Android or iOS device, view in Firefox with the YouTube ALL HTML5 add-on installed, or disable Flash in current Internet Explorer.

Course Description

David Berman’s team will convince you why accessibility and standards are important for everybody: to broaden your audience, to comply with the law, or simply to be socially responsible. We provide in-depth familiarity with everything in WCAG 2 (addressing both WCAG 2.0 and 2.1) that impacts multimedia. These guidelines will help your video and audio content presence be more effective resources for your entire audience … including your most frequent visitor: Google. You’ll also gain familiarity with the assistive technologies that help people.

Our course material includes a thorough review of all pertinent standards to comply with international and government federal or regional policies (such as the United States’ ADA and Section 508, the upcoming regulations for the Accessible Canada Act, and Ontario’s AODA).

The course can include a presentation or a video of one of our team members who lives with a disability using assistive technology to navigate your products.

Participants leave with techniques they can use right away for authoring, designing, producing, and testing. You will not only be aware of why accessibility and standards affect everyone: you’ll be equipped with a thorough understanding of what you need to do to make your multimedia accessible, and how to do it most efficiently and sustainably.

This course incorporates adult learning principles and activities appropriate to a variety of learning styles and qualifies for CEUs (certified by organizations such as PPAC).

“Excellent… knowledge I can use.”

– Sandra Clark, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Oslo (Norway)

“Focused and easy to follow.”

-Jason Hollett, gordongroup

“Great. He kept me listening and understanding.”

– Matthew Brunetti, Lixar IT

“Inspiring!”

– Morten Budeng, King Design

“Excellent.”

– Sylvie Nyman, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

What Makes This Course Unique

Our course developer, David Berman, is a consultant on accessibility for large multimedia projects and has worked on projects that include multimedia for many large organizations including the CRTC, Honda, LCBO, the Canadian Association of the Deaf, and several of the largest vehicle manufacturers in the world.

He is a high-level advisor to the United Nations on how accessible IT can help fulfill the Millennium Development Goals more rapidly.

He has been the project manager of numerous accessible Internet projects, has developed strategy and design for CFIA, CRA, CMHC, Health Canada, Canadian Heritage, Industry Canada, and the International Space Station … as well as many private sector and non-profit organizations.

By addressing and understanding multimedia accessibility issues, publishers can more effectively deliver their message to their entire audience, regardless of physical or mental impediments, while complying with legal and moral responsibilities.

“I enjoyed it all.”

– Robert Hallat, Public Service Commission

“Right on target.”

– Marius Monsen, Reaktor ID

“He knows what to do!” “This will guide us for the AA Standards”

– Bassil Wehbe, Agriculture Canada

What You Will Learn

You will learn how to make your current communications more accessible by complying with emerging standards and guidelines. Specifically, you will learn:

• Why make multimedia accessible?
• What challenges do people face when accessing multimedia?
• What technologies close the multimedia gaps?
• WCAG: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines applied to multimedia
• Exceptions: which multimedia success criteria are exempted from specific legislation (e.g., AODA, CVAA, Treasury Board, Norway, Israel…)
• How to conform to every applicable success criteria, without tradeoffs
  • captions (open and closed)
    • rolling your own captions
    • purchasing from captioning services
    • music
    • videos that have no sound
    • irrelevant sounds
    • multiple voices
    • live captioning for streaming
    • live captioning for interactive meetings and events
  • audio description / described video
    • integrating described video within the script
    • “storyboarding” in your described video
    • having a separate version vs. using a player with an AD button
  • descriptive text transcripts
    • authoring transcripts
    • incorporating authoring techniques from captions and audio descriptions into transcript authoring
    • integrating them with captioning code
  • flashing content / photosensitive epilepsy accommodation (and PEAT)
  • packaging and presenting your accessible multimedia
    • software-specific recipes (PowerPoint, Articulate Storyline, Articulate Rise)
    • configuring multimedia players (e.g., Vimeo, YouTube) and player features to be accessible for your website
    • accessibility considerations when coding a custom multimedia player
• Testing tools to confirm you are meeting or exceeding the standards
• Exceeding the regulatory requirements
  • extended audio description
  • sign language presentations
• Sustainable strategies for multimedia collections
  • planning ahead for non-visual users, low vision users, Deaf, and deafened users
  • procurement strategies
  • practical strategies for large legacy collections of multimedia
• Recipes for social media platforms
• Broadcast standards (CVAA, CRTC)
• Q&A until we run out of Qs

“Very good: made me think…”

– Bente Mollevik, Norwegian Savings Bank Association

“Great: very comprehensive. Touching on all aspects of accessibility.”

– Marc Iafelice, CFIA

“David really knows his topics. Very well done: got the point across in a way that can be applied to everyone.”

– Sean Strasbourg, CFIA

Prerequisites:

None (this course can, optionally, be tailored to remove introductory materials for audiences who already have basic or intermediate knowledge of multimedia production).

“Clear and entertaining: will allow more strategic planning rather than just reactionary stumbling.”

– Steve Doody, Justice Canada

“This will make us better communicators.”

– Luc Bergeron, SSHRC

“Perfect.”

– Jean Leclair, Environment Canada

Who Should Attend

This course is targeted to all team members (both new and experienced) responsible for video content including procuring, recording, broadcasting, scripting, and embedding. Project managers and QA teams would also benefit from the content of this course.

Language

English (French or Spanish available upon request)

Duration

Half-day course or one-day course (online or onsite).

Experience

Multimedia accessibility

We are experts in the fulfillment of WCAG, AODA, and Section 508 requirements regarding accessible multimedia and Web publishing. We have performed an accessibility audit and review for Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web Foundation, on both government and business Web sites in each of over 40 countries.

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act

We have expert knowledge in all relevant requirements of the accessibility standards called for in the regulations under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA).

We are experts in the fulfillment of AODA regulations regarding accessible documents and Web publishing. Our strength in this area is such that we run regular courses in Ontario that specifically teach executives, managers, educators, content developers, and Web programmers how to comply with AODA regulations. The Accessibility Directorate of Ontario itself (who governs AODA) has repeatedly sent their managers and staff to be trained personally by us.

Ontario municipalities and school boards

Our AODA clients for consulting and training have included a variety of municipalities and public institutions in Ontario (including the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, City of Cambridge, City of Oakville, City of Ottawa, City of Owen Sound, City of Hamilton, City of Peterborough, County of Essex, County of Wellington, Halton District School Board, Hamilton-Wentworth School Board, Limestone District School Board, Niagara Parks Commission, Norfolk County, Region of Peel, Toronto Transit Commission, and the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit.)

Higher education/academia

Our clients for consulting and training have included a variety of colleges and universities within Ontario (including Algonquin College, Brock University, Carleton University, Durham College, Humber College, McMaster University, Mohawk College, Seneca College, St. Lawrence College, University of Guelph, University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, University of Windsor, W. Ross MacDonald School for the Blind, and York University), elsewhere in Canada (Concordia University), the United States (Boston College, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Virginia, Savannah College of Art and Design), and beyond (Cardiff Metropolitan University, London School of Printing and Publishing, Universidad de las Americas, Yarmouk University, Bauhaus / Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, Binus University, Caldas University, Central Academy of Fine Arts of China, Federal University of Pernambuco, Lebanese American University, Vilnius Academy of Arts, VCU Qatar).

David is Chair of Carleton University’s Carleton Access Network for accessible information technology, run out of Carleton University’s Paul Menton Centre as an initiative of the School of Engineering.

Corporations and private sector

Our private sector clients for accessibility work include Actuate, Adobe, Blindside Networks, BMO (Bank of Montreal), Bruce Mau Design, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Conference Board of Canada, Empire Life, eXplorance, gordongroup, IBM, Jewish Federation of Ottawa, Lixar, Minto, NetCentric, OC Transpo, OpenText, Oxford Properties, Shaw Media, The Home Depot, Toronto Transit Commission, United Way, Yamaha Music

Government Accessibility

We have been involved with United States and Government of Canada Treasury Board standards on accessibility for over a decade, and have provided training to most major departments and agencies in the federal government. We have also provided consultation to the governments of Manitoba, Ontario, Queensland (Australia), India, and Norway.

“I love David’s approach.”

-Carole Dubuc, Canadian Armed Forces

“Clear, concise, and very useful.”

-Annette Kallevig

“Excellent, eye-opening, and not preachy!”

-Carrie Walker-Boyd, Canadian Food Inspection Agency

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Reviewed November 13, 2021