Proposed Test Rule: video element visual-only content has transcript

Applicability

This rule applies to any non-streaming video element that is visible where the video does not contain audio.

Expectation

The visual information of each test target is available in a text transcript that is available either on the page or through a link. The text transcript needs to be visible and included in the accessibility tree.

Assumptions

A mechanism is available to start the video and that the video element is not simply used to display the poster.
The language of each test target can be correctly determined (either programmatically or by analyzing the content), and sufficiently understood.

Accessibility Support

There are no major accessibility support issues known for this rule.

Background

A “text transcript” in the context of this rule is defined in WCAG 2 as an alternative for time based media.

Bibliography

Accessibility Requirements Mapping

G159: Providing an alternative for time-based media for video-only content
- Learn more about technique G159
- Not required for conformance to any W3C accessibility recommendation.
- Outcome mapping:
  - Any failed outcomes: technique is not satisfied
  - All passed outcomes: technique needs further testing
  - An inapplicable outcome: technique needs further testing

Input Aspects

The following aspects are required in using this rule.

DOM Tree
CSS Styling
Audio output (no link available)
Visual output (no link available)
Language

Test Cases

Passed

Passed Example 1

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This video element, which has no audio, has a text transcript available on the same page.

<html lang="en">
<video controls>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.webm" type="video/webm"></source>
</video>
<p>The above video shows a giant fat rabbit climbing out of a hole in the ground.
He stretches, yawns, and then starts walking.
Then he stops to scratch his bottom.</p>
</html>

Passed Example 2

Open in a new tab

This video element, which has no audio, has a transcript which conveys information included in the video-only content. The transcript is available through a link on the same page.

<html lang="en">
<video controls>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.webm" type="video/webm"></source>
</video>
<a href="/test-assets/rabbit-video/transcript.html">Transcript</a>
</html>

Failed

Failed Example 1

Open in a new tab

This video element, which has no audio, has an incorrect text transcript available on the same page.

<html lang="en">
<video controls>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.webm" type="video/webm"></source>
</video>
<p>The above video shows a giant fat dog climbing out of a hole in the ground.
He stretches, yawns, and then starts walking.
Then he stops to scratch his bottom.</p>
</html>

Failed Example 2

Open in a new tab

This video element, which has no audio, has an incorrect text transcript available through a link on the same page.

<html lang="en">
<video controls>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.webm" type="video/webm"></source>
</video>
<a href="/test-assets/rabbit-video/incorrect-transcript.html">Transcript</a>
</html>

Failed Example 3

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This video element, which has no audio, has a text transcript available on the same page, but the transcript is not visible.

<html lang="en">
<video controls>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.webm" type="video/webm"></source>
</video>
<p style="text-indent: -9999px;">The above video shows a giant fat rabbit climbing out of a hole in the ground.
He stretches, yawns, and then starts walking.
Then he stops to scratch his bottom.</p>
</html>

Failed Example 4

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This video element, which has no audio, has a text transcript available on the same page, but the transcript is not included in the accessibility tree.

<html lang="en">
<video controls>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.webm" type="video/webm"></source>
</video>
<p aria-hidden="true">The above video shows a giant fat rabbit climbing out of a hole in the ground.
He stretches, yawns, and then starts walking.
Then he stops to scratch his bottom.</p>
</html>

Inapplicable

Inapplicable Example 1

Open in a new tab

This video element has audio.

<html lang="en">
<video controls>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/video.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/video.webm" type="video/webm"></source>
</video>
<a href="/test-assets/rabbit-video/transcript.html">Transcript</a>
</html>

Inapplicable Example 2

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This video element is not visible.

<html lang="en">
<video controls style="display: none;">
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source>
  <source src="/test-assets/rabbit-video/silent.webm" type="video/webm"></source>
</video>
<a href="/test-assets/rabbit-video/transcript.html">Transcript</a>
</html>

Glossary

Focusable

An element is focusable if one or both of the following are true:

the element is part of sequential focus navigation; or
the element has a tabindex value that is not null.

Exception: Elements that lose focus during a period of up to 1 second after gaining focus, without the user interacting with the page the element is on, are not considered focusable.

Notes:

The 1 second time span is an arbitrary limit which is not included in WCAG. Given that scripts can manage the focus state of elements, testing the focusability of an element consistently would be impractical without a time limit.
The tabindex value of an element is the value of the tabindex attribute parsed using the rules for parsing integers. For the tabindex value to be different from null, it needs to be parsed without errors.

Included in the accessibility tree

Elements included in the accessibility tree of platform specific accessibility APIs are exposed to assistive technologies. This allows users of assistive technology to access the elements in a way that meets the requirements of the individual user.

The general rules for when elements are included in the accessibility tree are defined in the core accessibility API mappings. For native markup languages, such as HTML and SVG, additional rules for when elements are included in the accessibility tree can be found in the HTML accessibility API mappings (working draft) and the SVG accessibility API mappings (working draft).

For more details, see examples of included in the accessibility tree.

Programmatically hidden elements are removed from the accessibility tree. However, some browsers will leave focusable elements with an aria-hidden attribute set to true in the accessibility tree. Because they are hidden, these elements are considered not included in the accessibility tree. This may cause confusion for users of assistive technologies because they may still be able to interact with these focusable elements using sequential keyboard navigation, even though the element should not be included in the accessibility tree.

Non-streaming media element

A non-streaming media element is an HTML Media Element for which the duration property is not 0.

Outcome

An outcome is a conclusion that comes from evaluating an ACT Rule on a test subject or one of its constituent test target. An outcome can be one of the three following types:

Inapplicable: No part of the test subject matches the applicability
Passed: A test target meets all expectations
Failed: A test target does not meet all expectations

Note: A rule has one passed or failed outcome for every test target. When there are no test targets the rule has one inapplicable outcome. This means that each test subject will have one or more outcomes.

Note: Implementations using the EARL10-Schema can express the outcome with the outcome property. In addition to passed, failed and inapplicable, EARL 1.0 also defined an incomplete outcome. While this cannot be the outcome of an ACT Rule when applied in its entirety, it often happens that rules are only partially evaluated. For example, when applicability was automated, but the expectations have to be evaluated manually. Such “interim” results can be expressed with the incomplete outcome.

Programmatically Hidden

An HTML element is programmatically hidden if either it has a computed CSS property visibility whose value is not visible; or at least one of the following is true for any of its inclusive ancestors in the flat tree:

has a computed CSS property display of none; or
has an aria-hidden attribute set to true

Note: Contrarily to the other conditions, the visibility CSS property may be reverted by descendants.

Note: The HTML standard suggests rendering elements with the hidden attribute with a CSS rule that applies the value none to the CSS property display of the element. Although the suggestion is not normative, known user agents render it according to the suggestion (unless the content specifies another CSS rule that sets the value of the display property). If a user agent does not follow the suggestion, this definition may produce incorrect results for this user agent.

Visible

Content perceivable through sight.

Content is considered visible if making it fully transparent would result in a difference in the pixels rendered for any part of the document that is currently within the viewport or can be brought into the viewport via scrolling.

Content is defined in WCAG.

For more details, see examples of visible.

Implementations

There are currently no known implementations for this rule. If you would like to contribute an implementation, please read the ACT Implementations page for details.

Changelog

This is the first version of this ACT rule.