Forum Discussion
Rise upload video file accessibility ideas?
We hit a showstopper accessibility snag with Rise's upload multimedia block. We are required to use WAVE as our checker and it throws a missing video alt tag error for videos we upload.
We've looked at these possible solutions but they raise other issues or they're unknown territory. Wondering if anyone has found a solution??
Solutions we've discussed so far...
- Continue to use file upload and use the video caption field and text before the video block to describe the content (likely no: organization needs a clean WAVE test)
- Self host videos on our server (no, not optimized for streaming, captioning)
- Embed the video and host it on YouTube: (can of worms when it comes to privacy, Google terms of use, video participant consent). We are looking at other video hosting platforms with more nuanced sharing and embedding controls...
- Provide an accessible PDF of the whole module: (told no, don't want multiple versions of modules)
- Maybe put the video in a Storyline block? We'll test this but I'm not very familiar with Storyline and accessibility and am wondering if anyone has any experience using it for this situation?
- Other ideas????
Thank you!
13 Replies
Hello NoraatMM
I'm curious about your statement, "missing video alt tag error for videos." Where are you seeing this feedback?
In WAVE, I'm seeing two "feature" items for an uploaded video:
- null or empty alternative text
- figure
Features are elements that improve accessibility when implemented correctly and require human review. They are not errors, which indicate violations of WCAG, or alerts, which are elements that may cause accessibility issues.
This feature feedback on the video element is limited to the WAVE extension. Similar alerts are absent in other testing tools, such as ARC, axe DevTools, or ANDI. I've also tested it with the NVDA screen reader, and the video is announced as expected.
Hi,
We're being told the null or empty alternative text is the issue preventing us from publishing the modules -- they're being viewed as accessibility errors.
We're trying the Storyline block approach now. Storyline lets you provide alternative text for the video. Fingers crossed. I'd love to get back to regular file upload option though so I'll probe the "feature feedback" angle. Thanks!Thanks, NoraatMM!
So, perhaps we're talking about text alternatives. In Rise:
- The caption field can describe the purpose of the media.
- Text blocks can be used for text descriptions of media.
- Closed captions can be imported for videos with narration.
We upload our videos to Vimeo - keep them unlisted. The accessibility tools on Vimeo work well for our viewers. We don't run into the bugs that we did with YouTube.
Media player in Articulate is accessible so that is another option.
Thanks, Donna! What bugs did you run into with YouTube?
Thanks! Embedding Vimeo is a great option on the technical side of things -- much more control over privacy and embedding. It's a third party platform though so this gets into some less-than-ideal video participant consent territory.
