Background audio
Silktide finds pages that play audio and asks you to confirm that any speech in it is not competing with background sound. Background music or noise behind speech makes the words hard to follow for many listeners.
Why this matters
People who are hard of hearing separate speech from background sound far less easily than typical listeners - a music bed that seems subtle to you can make narration unintelligible to them. The same is true for people with auditory processing difficulties, hearing aid users, and anyone listening in a noisy place. This is a goal (success criterion 1.4.7): not usually legally required, but a meaningful quality bar for spoken content.
How to fix it
This check is a prompt to review the audio on each flagged page. For pre-recorded audio where speech is the main content, confirm at least one of:
- There is no background sound behind the speech.
- The listener can turn off the background sound.
- The background is at least 20 decibels quieter than the speech - roughly four times quieter to the ear.
If the audio needs remixing, ask whoever produced it to lower the music bed or export a speech-only version. Once you are satisfied the page is fine, the finding.
How Silktide tests this
- Look for audio players (
<audio>elements) in each page's . - Flag each page that contains one, so you can review the recording by ear. Silktide cannot analyse the sound itself to separate speech from background audio.
Troubleshooting
The audio is just music
Success criterion 1.4.7 only applies to audio whose primary content is speech. Pure music, ambient sound, and audio logos are out of scope - approve those findings.
Audio embedded another way
Only <audio> elements are detected. Audio played through video players or
custom scripts is not flagged by this check, so review those manually.