Transcripts

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The Standards

Section 508 Standards:

WCAG 2.0 Guidelines:

  • Guideline 1.1 Links to an external site.: "Provide text alternatives for any non-text content so that it can be changed into other forms people need, such as large print, braille, speech, symbols or simpler language." (W3C)
  • Guideline 1.2.1 Links to an external site. "Audio-only and Video-only (Prerecorded): For prerecorded audio-only and prerecorded video-only media, the following are true, except when the audio or video is a media alternative for text and is clearly labeled as such: (Level A)" (W3C)

What is a transcript?

Download Transcript for Podcast: What is a transcript? (1:23)

A transcript is a full text recount of dialogue and non-dialogue audio in multimedia. Sometimes it also includes text descriptions of visuals. The purpose of a transcript is to give individuals an option to read the transcript instead of watching/listening/interacting with the multimedia. Unlike captions, the text does not have to be synchronous with the video, but some players do allow for synchronization. It is expected that if more information is needed to clarify the content then that information is added to the transcript. Transcripts are often in a separate page or in a separate document. Listen to the What is a Transcript? podcast or read the accompanying transcript for more information on this.

Why is it important to include a transcript?

Download Transcript for Podcast: Why are transcripts important? (1:24)

Providing a transcript of media helps individuals with disabilities and many individuals without disabilities. Listen to the Why are transcripts important? podcast or read the accompanying transcript for more information on this.

Best Practices for Transcripts

It is recommended to include in the transcript:

  • All dialogue from the media. Usually you want to transcribe the dialogue as it is presented, even if it is not grammatically correct. There are some cases where you should even add the disfluencies ( ‘ahs’ and ‘ums’ in the speech), but not all types of media require this level of accuracy. It is recommended you determine the degree of accuracy before starting the transcription.
  • If a person's tone of voice or how they are speaking is relevant then include that information in brackets.
  • Important non-dialogue audio (baby crying, car horn honking, fire alarm, music, etc.)
  • The names of all the speakers in the transcript. Also include their official titles if that information is relevant and available. Just add the full name and title before their first line of dialogue and then use shorthand for the rest of the transcript.  
  • Descriptions of content-bearing visuals in the media. An example would be descriptions of graphs, charts and maps. For audio files or videos with unimportant decorative images then descriptions are not needed.
  • Clarifications and elaborations on visual instructions in the audio. For example, the narrator in a screencast video might say “Go over here for contact information.” In the transcript you could clarify where "here" is in the video. You might write in brackets or parenthesis, “Scroll down to the footer of the website to get the contact information.”   
  • Features of an accessible text document or webpage. This includes a proper heading structure using the built-in styles, high contrast color combinations, descriptive hyperlink text, and a table of contents for longer documents.

Resources

Information on this page is from the following resources about transcripts:

  • W3C Multimedia Accessibility FAQ. Links to an external site. Retrieved December 30, 2015.
    • This website, w3.org, is the website for The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is a community of individuals who develop web standards. The guides on this website include extensive recommendations, examples, related resources and other helpful tools.

Estimated time: 14 minutes