Text Alternatives

The What

Some types of digital media contain content that isn’t perceivable to everyone. The speech and other sounds in podcasts and videos isn’t perceivable to folks who are d/Deaf. Images, complex graphics (like maps and diagrams), and video contain visual content that isn’t perceivable to folks who are blind. For basic images, alt text might be enough to create a similar experience for people who are sighted and blind. For complex graphics and time-based media, we help users with visual and auditory disabilities perceive content with text alternatives.

Text alternatives vary depending on the media they’re associated with and the content they’re trying to communicate. The text alternative for a heat map could be a data table. The text alternative for a podcast would be a transcript. The text alternative for video for folks with auditory disabilities is captions (sometimes also a transcript). And the text alternative for video for folks with visual disabilities is audio description (or, verbal descriptions of what’s happening visually that get narrated between moments of speech).

The How

Level 1: Transcripts for podcasts

Do you want to share a podcast on a particular topic, and have multiple to choose from? Can you narrow your choices by which podcasts have transcripts available?

Podcasts with their own websites may have the transcript linked or written out on each episode’s page. Podcasts streamed through platforms like Spotify may have transcripts linked below each episode. Podcasts on YouTube should have auto-captions and will also often have a “Show transcript” button beneath the video description.

If the podcast you want to share doesn’t have a transcript, or if you’re creating your own podcast, it’s up to you to make sure a transcript is available. At Macalester, we offer multiple software options for transcribing audio. If you already have access to one of these, great! You can create a transcript within a matter of minutes, review/edit errors, and share that with your audience. If you haven’t done this before, reach out to your academic technologist. We’ll be happy to talk options and help you start your transcription project.

Level 1: Captions for videos

So you want to share a video. Does it have captions in the language you need?

All YouTube videos now have auto-generated English captioning as a baseline. Auto-generated captions are better than nothing, but captions labeled as the language you’re looking for will be more accurate (e.g., English (auto-generated) vs. English). If you’re using another video streaming platform, double-check that captions (sometimes called “Subtitles/CC”) are available.

If captions aren’t available, try looking for the video in the library. Depending on the title, you may be able to check out a DVD or use a streaming service like Kanopy to share the video you’re looking for with captions.

If you still can’t find a version of the video you need with captions, reach out to your academic technologist. We’re more than happy to help you source an accessible version of the video.

If you’re creating your own video, the platform you’re using may have an option to create captions automatically. WeVideo, for instance, has the option to create captions when you export your video. If you share the video using the WeVideo link, the captions will be available to viewers. YouTube will now auto-caption any video you upload. That said, it’s still important to review auto-generated captions and edit for accuracy and timing if necessary.

If the platform doesn’t offer this option, we have software at Mac that you can use to create your own captions. Reach out to your academic technologist if you’d like to learn more about captioning videos.

And last but not least, when sharing a video with captions, don’t forget to turn them on!

Level 2: Audio description for videos

Alright, you’ve gotten used to asking about captions whenever you encounter videos. Great! Let’s add another consideration: audio description.

As mentioned above, audio description is verbal description of content that you would only get by seeing what’s happening in the video. This is especially important to seek out or create if you’re teaching students with visual disabilities, or if you ever expect someone with a visual disability to engage with your content.

You can check to see if a video has audio description in a similar place to where you’d find captions or subtitles. If they’re available, yay! If not, you can check the library or ask a librarian or academic technologist to help you find a version with audio description.

If you’re creating your own video, you have a few options:

• create a script that includes a description of visual content
• record your spoken audio and then create a second version of the same length with audio descriptions in between the segments of speech
• create two versions of your video: one with audio description and one without
• create a version of the video that pauses between segments of speech for extended audio description

The easiest of these is writing a script that includes visual information. It can feel a bit clunky at first, but with a little practice you can make polished scripts that include the important visual details.

If that won’t work for your video, you can create your own audio description to accompany the video’s spoken audio. First, you’ll want to watch through the video (maybe with the sound off, if the audio track is distracting) and try to take note of the moments when visual information is playing a role in the narrative.

When writing your audio description script, ask yourself:

• Which visual elements are most important?
• What visual cues are necessary to understanding the slide, scene, or dialogue?
• When are things happening that you can only see?
• What is the tone of your video?

Try to create concise visual descriptions that match the tone of your video and avoid editorializing. For example, if someone makes a face, you might describe which parts of their face change (and how) rather than narrating how you think they’re feeling.

For help creating audio descriptions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your academic technologist!

Level 2: Text alternatives for complex graphics

Sometimes, alt text is enough to communicate an image’s content. But when it comes to robust diagrams, flow charts, maps, and other complex graphics, alt text won’t give you enough room to really create a similar experience for screen reader users and sighted readers. So what do you do?

The text alternative you choose will depend on the type and purpose of your graphic. In the heat map example at the top of this page, the data table was an appropriate text alternative because a heat map is visually depicting a large swath of combined geographic and other data. If the map had enough points (and all were relevant), you might opt for a spreadsheet instead of a data table. You’d still want to add alt text or a caption to the map, so screen reader users could understand that it’s a heat map, maybe its major takeaway, and where they could find the text alternative.

And depending on where you’re embedding the heat map, you might attach the data table or spreadsheet differently:

• In a slide deck, you could put the data table on the following slide, “hide” it from the presentation, and make a note about the data table on the heat map slide or in the heat map’s alt text.
• In a Moodle course, you could attach a spreadsheet that’s hidden on the page but accessible via a link—and then put the link below the heat map on the Moodle page.
• In a Word doc, you could put the data table in an appendix or create a Google sheet and link to the sheet in the heat map’s alt text.

Text alternatives for complex graphics can be tricky, and there isn’t always one way to do things or even consensus about best practices. The most important thing is that screen reader users can use text alternatives to have similar experiences to sighted readers.

If you’d like support brainstorming text alternatives for complex graphics, what’s the refrain?

Reach out to your academic technologist!