Video Accessibility: Captions, Transcripts and Social Media Tips
An accessible video lets anyone follow it, regardless of disability. That means accurate captions and transcripts, clear audio description, and enough contrast between text and background.
Introduction
This Privacy Notice aims to clearly and transparently explain which personal data we collect when you visit our website, why we collect it, how we use it, and what Your rights are.
We process your personal data in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and applicable national data protection laws. We are committed to ensuring that all processing activities are carried out in accordance with the principles of lawfulness, fairness, transparency, data minimization, integrity, and confidentiality.
Specifically, in this notice you will find information about:
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which data we collect about you and for what purposes;
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the legal bases on which we process such data;
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who we may share your data with;
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how long we retain your data;
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your rights and how to exercise them.
While we sometimes need Your data for example, to respond to your requests or improve our website), we do so with respect, care and only when truly necessary.
Our Privacy Promises
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We deeply value your privacy, and for this reason, we guarantee that:
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We treat your data as if it were our own.
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We use your data only for the purposes outlined in this notice.
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We retain your data only for as long as strictly necessary.
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We do not share your data with third parties without a valid legal basis or your explicit consent.
1. Who Processes Your Personal Data
The Data Controller — that is, the entity that determines the purposes and means of the processing of Your personal data — is AccessiWay S.a.S., with registered office at 7 Rue du Général Henrion Bertier, 92200 Neuilly-sur-Sein registered with the Nanterre Trade and Companies Register under number 914 022 595.
AccessiWay is part of the team.blue group and, in certain cases, acts as joint controller together with team.blue NV, with registered office at Skaldenstraat 121, 9042 Ghent, Belgium. In this context, Your personal data may be shared within the group for statistical, administrative, operational, and service improvement purposes.
AccessiWay and team.blue have defined their respective roles and responsibilities under a joint controllership agreement pursuant to Article 26 of the GDPR, ensuring full compliance with data protection regulations.
For more information regarding joint controllership or to exercise Your rights, you may contact AccessiWay via email at the following email addresses:
📧 legal.fr@accessiway.com or info@accessiway.com.
2. Who This Privacy Notice Applies To
This notice applies to:
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users who browse the website www.accessiway.com,
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individuals who contact us through the form available on the website or via email;
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users who interact with tools we have implemented (e.g. widgets, cookies);
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individuals who, through the website or other channels, access external platforms or third-party entities through which they may submit a job application (e.g. recruiting portals or employment agencies).
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In such cases, the privacy notices of the third parties involved — independent from AccessiWay — also apply.
3. What Data We Process
To manage your interaction with our website, we may process the following categories of personal data:
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Identification and contact details such as name, surname, company, job title, email address, and phone number.
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These data may be partially processed through our customer relationship management (CRM) system.
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Data relating to your interaction with our services such as information collected via the website or through Hubspot, such as communication history, preferences, requests, and commercial or technical notes.
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Technical data such as IP address, device type, operating system, browser, access times, and other data automatically recorded by our systems or servers.
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Browsing data and preferences such as collected via cookies or similar technologies, in accordance with the choices expressed through the cookie consent banner.
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Application data such as personal information included in your CV or other documents submitted through third-party platforms (e.g. professional experience, education, contact details).
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These data are processed by AccessiWay only after being transmitted by the third party, which remains autonomous in the initial processing.
4. Purposes and Legal Basis of Processing
We process Your personal data in compliance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and applicable national data protection laws. Your data may be processed for the following purposes:
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Technical operation of the website
We process technical data, using technical cookies and similar tools, to allow You to access the site, view it correctly, and ensure it functions properly (e.g. browsing, content loading, storing preferences).
📌Legal basis: this processing is necessary to provide a service requested by the user, pursuant to Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR. Your consent is not required for these cookies.
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Handling contact or support requests
When you send us a request — via the contact form or by email — we process your data to respond and provide the information requested.
📌 Legal basis: this processing is necessary to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract, pursuant to Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR.
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Compliance with legal obligations
In certain cases, we may need to process your data to comply with legal obligations, such as tax, accounting, or IT security requirements.
📌 Legal basis: this processing is based on compliance with a legal obligation, pursuant to Article 6(1)(c) of the GDPR.
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Statistical analysis and website improvement
We use analytical tools (e.g. analytical cookies) to collect aggregated data in order to understand how the website is used and to improve its content and functionality.
📌 Legal basis: we process this data only with your freely given and specific consent, pursuant to Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR.
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Marketing and Profiling
If you authorize us to do so, we may use your data to send you promotional communications or provide personalized content (e.g. through profiling cookies).
📌 Legal basis: this processing is carried out only with your explicit consent, pursuant to Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR. You may withdraw your consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
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Management of job applications through third parties
We may receive job applications via third-party platforms (e.g. job portals) or through recruitment agencies. In such cases, we process the submitted data to assess your suitability for the proposed role.
📌 Legal basis: this processing is necessary to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract, pursuant to Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR.
Note: the privacy policies of the third-party platforms or agencies involved also apply, independently of AccessiWay.
5. Cookies and Tracking Tools
This website uses a cookie management system provided by iubenda, which allows you to:
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view a full and transparent list of the cookies in use;
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modify or withdraw your consent at any time;
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access the complete Cookie Policy, integrated in the cookie widget.
You can manage your preferences by clicking on the cookie widget icon located at the bottom left corner of every page on the site.
Technical cookies are necessary and therefore enabled by default. Other non-essential cookies (analytical, profiling) are only enabled with your consent.
For more information, please refer to the full Cookie Policy accessible from the cookie widget.
6. Use of accessWidget
This website integrates accessWidget, an automated accessibility tool developed by accessiBe Ltd. and distributed by AccessiWay. The widget allows users to personalize their browsing experience based on their needs.
When the user activates the widget, their IP address is technically transmitted, but:
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it is not stored, tracked, or associated with identifiable individuals;
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it is anonymized via a proxy located in the European Union;
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it is not used for profiling or marketing purposes.
📌 Legal basis: provision of a service requested by the user (Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR).
7. Data Security
We adopt appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security, integrity, and confidentiality of the personal data we process. These measures are designed to prevent unauthorized access, loss, disclosure, or alteration of your data. In particular, we implement:
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secure connections via HTTPS (SSL/TLS);
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authentication systems and access control;
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access limitation and internal access tracking mechanisms;
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regular audits and verification procedures;
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continuous updates to systems and security measures according to the level of risk.
8. Data Retention
Your personal data is stored only for the time strictly necessary to achieve the purposes for which it was collected. Specifically:
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Contact data: up to 10 years if relevant for contractual or legal purposes;
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Technical and browsing data: according to what is outlined in the Cookie Policy;
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Marketing data: until consent is withdrawn.
9. Your Rights (Data Subject Rights)
As a data subject, you may exercise the rights provided under Articles 15–22 of the GDPR at any time. In particular, you have the right to:
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Obtain confirmation as to whether or not your personal data is being processed and access such data (right of access);
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Request the rectification of inaccurate personal data or the completion of incomplete data (right to rectification);
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Request the erasure of your data, if the conditions set out in the GDPR are met (right to erasure);
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Obtain restriction of processing where applicable (right to restriction);
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Object to the processing of your data, in whole or in part, under certain circumstances (right to object);
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Receive your data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and, where technically feasible, have it transmitted directly to another controller (right to data portability);
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Withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
📧 You can exercise Your rights at any time by contacting us at: legal.fr@accessiway.com.
🔗 If you are located in France and believe that the processing of your personal data violates applicable law, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the French Data Protection Authority (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés – CNIL) via the website: www.cnil.fr.
*If you have difficulty accessing our form, please feel free to contact us. Send an e-mail to info@accessiway.com
Video is the most common format online today, yet it's still often designed for people who can see and hear without difficulty. This guide brings together the technical practices that make a video accessible to everyone: captions, transcripts, audio description, caption contrast and fonts, plus the differences between the main social platforms.
Essential practices for accessible video
An accessible video lets anyone follow it, regardless of disability. For people with hearing disabilities, that means accurate captions and transcripts. For people with visual disabilities, it means clear audio description and sufficient contrast between text and background. The practices below cover both fronts, from the text content to how captions actually look on screen.
Captions and closed captions (CC)
Captions translate or transcribe the spoken dialogue on screen.
Closed captions (CC) also add the scene's relevant sounds: a door closing, applause, background music changing tone. For people with hearing disabilities this difference matters: a caption that only reports dialogue leaves out part of the information.
A well-made caption meets a few technical conditions:
The text must appear in sync with the audio, with no perceptible lead or lag.
It must stay on screen long enough to be read in full, calculated on an average reading speed rather than the speaking pace.
It must indicate who is speaking when more than one person is in the scene.
It must not leave gaps without captions when something relevant to understanding happens in the scene.
Transcripts
A transcript is the full text of everything said and heard in the video, offered as a separate document or included on the page that hosts the video. Unlike captions, it isn't synchronized: readers can scroll through it at their own pace, search for a specific passage, or consult it without playing the video.
For someone with a hearing disability, the transcript is a complete alternative to the audio content. It also has a secondary benefit for organic and AI-assistant visibility: a search engine reads the text of a transcript far more easily than it can read a video file, and that helps the content get found.
Audio description
Audio description is an additional narration that describes out loud what's happening on screen: a facial expression, a gesture, a change of setting, on-screen text that isn't read aloud. It's needed whenever visual information is necessary to understand the scene and isn't already conveyed by the dialogue or sound effects.
It becomes essential when a video communicates something purely through images: a tutorial showing a movement, a chart that appears without commentary, a product demo where the interaction is entirely visual. In these cases, without audio description, a person with a visual disability loses part of the content that no other element of the video makes up for.
Audio description fits into the natural pauses in the dialogue. When those pauses aren't enough, you can produce a slightly longer version of the video, with extra pauses built in specifically to make room for it.
Caption contrast and readability
Caption color matters as much as caption content. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) call for a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 between text and background for normal text: by extension, the same threshold applies to captions overlaid on a video.
In practice, this means avoiding light text on an equally light background, or dark on dark, and being wary of combinations that rely on color alone to stand out (red on green, for example, is hard to read for people with color blindness). A semi-transparent background behind the text — even just a dark band at 50-60% opacity — solves most readability problems on video backgrounds that keep changing.
Position matters too. Captions should sit where they don't cover faces, hands signing in sign language, or informative graphic elements like captions, logos, or on-screen interfaces.
Caption font and size
A sans-serif font stays more readable on screen than a serif font, especially at the small sizes typical of captions. Size should stay proportional to the screen the video is most often watched on: what's readable on a monitor can look tiny on a phone, where most social content gets watched.
Two lines at a time is generally the limit beyond which a caption becomes hard to read in the time available.
Use ALL CAPS sparingly: it slows down reading compared to natural upper/lowercase, which the brain recognizes by word shape rather than letter by letter.
Alt text for social captions
On social media, video accessibility doesn't stop at the player. The post caption plays a role too, especially when it describes visual content that the platform's automatic captions don't cover. We apply this in our own content: in a recent Reel about the importance of alt text, the caption includes a description of what the video shows, in addition to the post's text.
This kind of description helps someone using a screen reader understand what they'd see if they could see the video, and it complements — without replacing — on-screen captioning.
Video accessibility on social media: differences between platforms
Video is only one piece of the picture: for the full set of practices — captions, alt text, hashtags, and more — see our guide to social media accessibility.
Every platform handles captions and descriptions its own way, and the differences matter when the same video gets published across multiple channels. Knowing them means not relying solely on automatic captioning, which remains a good starting point but always needs review.
Instagram (Reels)
Instagram generates automatic captions for Reels at the moment of publishing, which can be turned on with a tap. Automatic speech recognition still makes mistakes with technical terms, proper nouns, and regional accents, so it should always be reviewed before publishing. The post's alt text, separate from the video, remains the right place to describe visual elements that captions don't cover.
TikTok
TikTok works in a similar way: automatic captions can be turned on during editing, with the same need for manual review. The main difference from Instagram is in text styling, which can be customized in font and color directly in the app, making it easier to apply the contrast rules covered above.
(Note: Instagram offers the Edits app for creating and editing captions.)
YouTube
YouTube supports uploading separate caption files, in .srt, .sbv, or .vtt format, the most reliable option because it allows a full review before publishing. Since 2020, YouTube no longer offers community-contributed captions: responsibility now rests entirely with whoever uploads the video.
YouTube Shorts
Shorts inherit the vertical, short format of Reels, but caption handling still follows the YouTube player: you can upload .srt files for Shorts too, an option Instagram and TikTok don't offer in the same way for their own short formats.
LinkedIn's audience is professional, and the style of video content follows a more restrained register, consistent with the measured visual pace we use in our own LinkedIn videos. Automatic captions are available here too, but the same rule applies as on the other platforms: they need review, especially for the technical terminology that comes up often in B2B content, because the transcription is frequently not faithful to the spoken audio.
Tools and processes for accessible video content
Many automatic transcription and captioning tools do a good job as a starting point. None of them removes the need for human review: speech recognition still gets proper nouns, technical terms, and overlapping voices wrong, and a caption error remains a barrier even when the source video was designed to be accessible.
A simple workflow helps you avoid skipping steps.
Step 1: plan the content. Write a simple script, with one person speaking at a time and a clear message per scene.
Step 2: record clean audio. A dedicated microphone and a quiet environment cut down on the correction work later.
Step 3: generate captions and a transcript. Start with an automatic tool, then manually correct names, technical terms, and punctuation.
Step 4: add audio description if needed. Only when the visual content communicates something the dialogue doesn't already cover.
Step 5: test the result. Watch the video with captions on and no sound: if it still makes sense, that's a good sign.
We treat this kind of work as part of the same ongoing practice we apply to websites and documents: not a one-time check, but a process that repeats every time new content gets published.
Why invest in video accessibility: the numbers
Two figures help frame the scale of this issue.
According to CENSIS, around 7 million people in Italy — 12.1% of the population — live with a hearing difficulty (source: CENSIS, 2020). According to ISTAT, 18.6% of the population over age 15 lives with a mild or severe vision limitation (source: ISTAT, report "Condizioni di salute e ricorso ai servizi sanitari in Italia e nell'Unione europea").
A video without accurate captions excludes the first group. A video without audio description, when the visual content is central, excludes the second. Combined, these are percentages no business can afford to ignore if the goal is genuinely reaching its whole audience.
There's also a less direct but concrete benefit: transcripts improve how video content gets indexed by search engines, because they provide text a crawler can read in full. The same principle increasingly applies to AI-based assistants, which rely on text to understand what a video is about.
Inclusive video: where to start
Three things apply to any video (plus a bonus one), regardless of platform.
Automatic captions are a starting point, never a finish line, and always need correcting before publishing.
Contrast and text size aren't a cosmetic detail — they're the difference between a caption people can read and one nobody can follow.
Audio description needs to be planned, not bolted on at the last minute, because it requires pauses built into the edit on purpose.
There's also a fourth, less obvious point: thinking about accessibility while writing the script, not after editing, reduces the correction work downstream. A video designed from the start for a broad audience needs fewer follow-up fixes to captions, audio description, and contrast, because those choices are already part of the script.
If your team handles video production and wants to apply these practices systematically, our Academy includes training paths dedicated to multimedia content accessibility.
Frequently asked questions about making video accessible
What's the difference between captions and closed captions?
Captions report the spoken dialogue. Closed captions (CC) also add the scene's relevant sounds, like applause or a door closing, which help people with hearing disabilities.
Is audio description required for every video?
No, it's needed when the visual content communicates information the dialogue doesn't already cover, like a tutorial showing a movement or an entirely visual product demo.
What's the recommended minimum contrast for captions?
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) call for a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 between text and background, the same threshold used for normal text on the web.
Are Instagram's and TikTok's automatic captions already accessible?
No, automatic speech recognition still makes mistakes with proper nouns and technical terms, so captions should always be manually reviewed before publishing.
Why add a transcript in addition to captions?
A transcript offers the full text, readable at your own pace, useful for people who prefer reading, and it improves how video content gets indexed by search engines.
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