Media

Videos, animations, and audio that automatically play can be confusing and stressful for people with cognitive impairments. Autoplaying media also makes it hard for people using screen readers to hear a page’s content.

Audio descriptions describe visual information presented in video or other media. This benefits people who are blind, have low vision, or have cognitive limitations that make it hard to interpret visual cues.

Captions allow Deaf or hard of hearing people to access audio content. Some video services like YouTube use an algorithm to automatically generate captions. This is a fast but often ineffective method, as the captions are often incorrect.

Provide a global pause function on media elements. If the device has a keyboard, make sure the space key can pause playback. Make sure your site doesn’t interfere with the space key's ability to scroll the page/view when not focusing on a form control.