5.01 - Captioning playback and User Selection

Design Guidance Test Guidance Product types Applicable standards

Where ICT displays video with synchronized audio, it shall have a mode of operation to display the available captions. Where closed captions are provided as part of the content, the ICT shall allow the user to choose to display the captions.

NOTE 1: Captions may contain information about timing, color, and positioning. This caption data is necessary for caption users. Timing is used for caption synchronization. Color can be used for speaker identification. Position can be used to avoid obscuring important information.

NOTE 2: If a Braille device is connected, the ICT should provide an option to display captions on the Braille device.

Design Guidance

Provide a mechanism within your ICT to turn on/off the display of captions. In the settings dialog below from iOS 8, the user can turn on/off captioning for the entire device.

Screenshot of Accessibility Subtitles & Captioning screen

Because users have different preferences and requirements for what will make a good captioning experience, it is ideal to enable customization of the presentation of captions as well. In the settings dialog below from iOS 8, the user can configure several attributes of the displayed captions including font, size and color.

Screenshot of caption customization screen

The video player used within the ICT must also have the ability to toggle on/off the display of captions. It could be that the user typically wants captions displayed but the content they are viewing needs to have captions turned off for temporary viewing of information. An example would be the display of a sports game where the scores are displayed on the bottom of the screen. If the captions are covering the score, the user may turn on/off the caption display as necessary to access the information at the bottom of the screen.

The design of the on/off functionality for captions must be easily discoverable and, ideally, a setting that can be quickly toggled on/off with a keyboard shortcut, mouse press, speech input, and/or touch.

Test Guidance

Identify all of the locations within the ICT where multimedia content can be rendered. Ensure that you have test content that contains captions for each of these locations.

  • Go to a system setting on ICT and enable the display of captions
  • Navigate to a location where multimedia content can be displayed
  • Load content in player
  • Verify that captions are displayed
  • Verify there is functionality to hide the display of captions on the player
  • Activate the functionality to verify the captions are hidden
  • Activate the functionality to verify the captions are shown after being hidden

Product types

Applicable

  • All products with Two-way person to person communications functionality (Voice, Video, Text)

May apply

  • Closed Functionality Computing Products, Retail Point of Sale Kiosks (hardware, preinstall software. No expansion or add-on option)
  • Desktop, Notebook, Workstation PCs (hardware, preinstall software and included accessories)
  • Mobile phones, Phablets, voice communication devices (hardware, preinstall software and included accessories)
  • Tablets and Slates (hardware, preinstall software and included accessories)
  • Thin Client devices (hardware, preinstall software and included accessories)

Applicable standards

  • EN 301 549 - 7.1.1 Captioning playback
  • Revised Section 508 - 413.1.1 Decoding and Display of Closed Captions
  • Legacy Section 508 - 1194.24 (e)
  • Revised Section 508 - 413.1 General