WCAG

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is the internationally recognised standard published by the W3C that defines how digital content should be made accessible to people with disabilities. The guidelines are organised around four principles — perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust — and published at conformance levels A, AA, and AAA. Level AA is the legal and procurement baseline in most jurisdictions, including the EU, UK, US Section 508, and many corporate procurement policies. For learning video, AA mandates synchronised captions on all pre-recorded audio content (Success Criterion 1.2.2), audio description or a media alternative for pre-recorded video (1.2.5), and full keyboard operability of the player interface (2.1.1). It also requires that the player meets sufficient colour contrast, has visible focus indicators, and exposes semantic roles to assistive technology. Meeting WCAG AA is not merely a compliance checkbox: it widens the audience to deaf and hard-of-hearing learners, those using screen readers, keyboard-only users, and people watching in sound-sensitive environments. The current operative version is WCAG 2.1; WCAG 2.2 added further criteria around focus and authentication; WCAG 3.0 is in draft. When building or procuring a learning video platform, WCAG conformance must be verified against the actual player and LMS UI, not just the content itself.

The handbook · 7 volumes

Fora Soft Video Engineering Handbook

WCAG Level AA sets the bar for captions, audio description, and keyboard access in learning video, and audits fail most often on the media itself. We wrote seven volumes on the video stack; for WCAG work start with Volume 4 on accessibility, subtitles, and loudness, then Volume 3 on players, with automatic captions through ASR in Volume 6. Written by Nikolay Sapunov, CEO at Fora Soft.

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