Descriptions for pre-recorded media
Silktide finds the audio and video players on your pages so you can confirm that pre-recorded videos provide an audio description of their visual content. Whether a description exists, and whether it covers what matters, is something only a person can verify.
Why this matters
A video's soundtrack rarely carries everything: actions, on-screen text, charts, and scene changes are often visual only. Without an , people who are blind or have low vision get only the dialogue, and can miss the point of the video entirely - a product demonstration with an unnarrated interface, for example, communicates nothing to them.
This requirement comes from success criterion 1.2.5, which applies at .
How to fix it
Findings from this check are prompts to verify, not confirmed failures. For each video reported:
- Watch it and note any important information that is only visible, not spoken.
- If there is none - the narration already says everything the visuals show - the video passes; the finding.
- Otherwise, provide an audio description: commission a described audio track, or re-edit the video so the narration mentions the essential visual details directly.
- If natural pauses in the dialogue are too short to fit the description, see Extended descriptions for pre-recorded media.
How Silktide tests this
- Find the video and audio players in each page's own , skipping any elements you have excluded from checking.
- Ignore media that is permanently muted, which cannot be conveying audio information.
- Also report links that go directly to videos on known external video platforms.
- Report each remaining player for you to confirm an audio description is provided - Silktide cannot watch the media itself.
Troubleshooting
The video already has an audio description
Silktide cannot detect audio descriptions inside a media file or player, so described videos are still listed. Verify the description and approve the finding.
My video is not detected
Silktide finds media players in the page's own HTML and direct links to known video platforms. Videos embedded through frames from other services may not be detected, but the requirement still applies to them.