does the audio have a transcript?

[StephDriver]

just as images need alt-text, audio does too.

Janeway needs new functionality to allow for text to be attached to all non-text media in accordance with WCAG.

[StephDriver]

from discussion with @ajrbyers

@StephDriver to investigate the requirements and how they relate to what we need to do. Be specific about what we need to do in order to be compliant. - technology agnostic

[StephDriver]

Summary

The solution for non-audio equivalents for audio, is likely to overlap with that for non-visual equivalents for video and as such I am expanding this issue to include time-based media in general. This media needs to work for those who encounter access barriers to the audio parts, to the visual parts and to both audio and visual parts.

Scope - Anticipated media

Time-based media is likely to be included in articles and in news items. There could also be some within the custom journal pages e.g. a 'meet the editors' video. Live audio is not anticipated. All of these would be pre-recorded media. Currently there is no such audio within the backoffice side.

1. discussion 'podcasts' - e.g. audio only news articles, software releases, podcast series
2. 'vodcasts' with and without slides - e.g. audiovisual recordings of conference presentations.
3. short illustrative video and/or audio (in place of a where diagram or figure might have been in traditional print journals). These could include silent animation to show processes, short audio recordings of a few words to illustrate a voice/pronunciation, or video clips with both audio and visual elements.

A11y requirements

rule of thumb - equivalent information should be provided in a non-audio and non-visual format.

A single text transcript could be sufficient for both as long as it contains the equivalent of both the original-audio and -visual information.

Equivalent Information

• the words spoken
• background sounds, music etc that are relevant
• consider including information conveyed by non-verbal aspects of audible communication depending on relevance.

Expected process:

W3C example for a software release podcast

1. start with the script
2. compare this with the final edited audio, and correct as appropriate into a transcript.
3. proof-read the transcript to determine whether it can 'stand alone' such that a person who read it without hearing the audio would receive equivalent information.
4. Where there are slides involved, these should be:
   1. slide changes marked on the transcript so which slide goes with which part is clear.
   2. slides themselves need to be fully described. Including them alongside as an accessible document could be sufficient depending on the accessibility of that document.

Technical Requirements (for Janeway Functionality)

• files containing audio must have a 1 to 1 relationship with a text transcript (nb could be multiple old versions of transcript but 1 to 1 for 'current').
• back-office workflows to handle the inclusion of text transcripts for audio files
• automated use of alt-text for the audio media to link to transcript which includes a descriptive name for the audio with the suffix "(text transcript follows)"
• this suffix must be included in translations as appropriate.
• the transcript must indeed follow in such a way that it can be displayed or hidden so as not to clutter the page unnecessarily as that could affect readability and navigability.

Additional Information

current situation is also discussed in the review of the new OLH site. See BirkbeckCTP/hourglass#326

[StephDriver]

Questions arising

• how will adding a text transcript to multimedia look in the back office?
  • Where does it fit into the workflow?
  • will it be a file upload, or edited within Janeway?
  • does a transcript need to go through the standard workflow - copyediting, typesetting etc?
    • should this be optional? consider the 30 min podcast news-item versus a 2 min illustration within a long text article.
    • do we anticipate multimedia articles (where the multimedia substantially is ther article) in the future?
  • does editing of transcript for audio within an article affect the publication and archival details of that article? At what point might this require a correction notice, and how to help ensure our editors use this new functionality appropriately with previously published articles?
• do we want to provide the option to link a document, for example slides, to the multimedia and transcript, or require that the transcript is handled by Janeway
  • as a linked document the accessibility of the slides would be completely outside our control
  • however this could make for a better reader experience especially for those who have print disabilities but can otherwise access visual information who need images of text (e.g. slides) as text not image, but otherwise want the video which is a somewhat different usecase from those who cannot access the visual information in the video at all.
  • Providing a simple way to include the slides from presenations could be desirable in and of itself for conference presentations.

[ajrbyers]

We held off discussing this issue at the 18/04 refinement meeting so that we can discuss it with @StephDriver.

[joemull]

Backlog refinement:

@mauromsl to break down some of this into dev issues and then assign to @StephDriver to look at the accessibility affordances.