Screencasting: Accessibility

Clossen, A. S. (2014). Beyond the letter of the law: Accessibility, universal design, and human-centered design in video tutorials. Pennsylvania Libraries: Research & Practice, 2(1), 27-37.

Oud, J. (2011). Improving screencast accessibility for people with disabilities: Guidelines and techniques. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 16(3), 129-144.
This article is so helpful that it's difficult to pick the most important parts. So much of what Oud writes applies to web usability in general, not just screencasts. 

• "Think about accessibility during the planning stage, before the screencast is created" (138).
• Accessible content is technically accessible and usable.
• To be accessible, content must be available for use in more than one way (133). For example:
  • a tutorial with audio content should also have closed captioning. (See youtube instructions)
  • include voice narration to visual tutorials, and "make sure your narration is meaningful for people who cannot see the screen" (135).
• Captioning should be visible (136).
  • Captions should have an option to hide them; watching a video, listening to audio, and reading captions all at once can be too much of a cognitive load.
• Text or audio alternate formats assist users who are unable to use videos.
• Make visuals easy to see (139):
  • high contrast, especially text
  • text as large as possible
  • simple graphics
  • uncluttered screen
  • make visual cues "large, clear, and obvious so people can recognize and focus on them immediately" (139).
• Clear audio narration
  • Avoid background noise, music, etc.
• "Visual illustrations are especially useful for people with some cognitive and learning disabilities," but any graphics must have a purpose. If their function is purely decorative, they can distract from your central message (140).
• Make sure content is well organized and clearly structured

Martin, N. A., & Martin, R. (2015). Would you watch it? Creating effective and engaging video tutorials. Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning, 9(1/2), 40-56. doi:10.1080/1533290X.2014.946345

Ng, Cynthia. Presentation: Making Accessible Content Easy and Part of Your Work.
Clear introductory overview of accessibility principles, with a brief section about video and audio. 

Queen's University Accessibility Hub. Video accessibility.

Wakimoto, D. K., & Soules, A. (2011). Evaluating accessibility features of tutorial creation software. Library Hi Tech, 29(1), 122-136.

If the screencast has audio, youtube has a feature that automatically captions the video. This feature is not yet perfect, so you may need to edit the captions. More information:

• Add your own subtitles and closed captions (YouTube)