Captions, Transcripts, Audio Descriptions, Sign Language Interpretation
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Sketchnote with title "Captions, Transcripts, Audio Descriptions, Sign Language Interpretation".
What they have in common is that all of them are alternative ways to access audio and video content.
1. Captions (most widely used)
- written text synchronized with content
- same language as main audio track
- include important non-speech information
- benefit people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have cognitive disability, but everyone else too
There are two variants, closed captions and open captions:
Closed Captions (CC)
- text on top of video
- can be turned on or off
- sometimes styling can be changed
Open Captions (OC)
- text burnt into video
- can’t be turned off or styled
Captions are not subtitles. Subtitles are visual text for people who can hear audio, e.g. watching a foreign language film. But there are geographical differences.
2. Transcripts
- similar to captions
- create transcripts from captions and add more details
- search bots can crawl transcripts
- useful for people with cognitive disabilities or for people who want to review the content at their own speed
- different presentation possible, often links to external pages
3. Audio Description
- use a narrator to explain visual information
- for people who are blind, have low vision or cognitive disorders
- include nonverbal information like facial expression, unspoken actions etc
- very detailed
- video will pause to give narrator enough time
4. Sign Language Interpreter
- interpreter narrates the audio-only using sign language
- richer experience than captions or transcripts, more expressive and detailed
- important for people who are deaf, with sign language as first and most fluent language
- time-consuming and cost-prohibitive to many organizations
- over 300 different sign languages worldwide