3 Essential Tips for Creating Accessible, Usable Health Videos

Prepared by Samuel Mendez

Summary

As health communicators, we know we need to use different formats to reach different audiences. Videos are helpful tools to reach people with important health info. But they may come with usability and accessibility issues of their own. Use these 3 tips to make your content more inviting and easier to use:

1. Break videos into short chunks with clear headings.
2. Include closed captions and transcripts.
3. Include audio descriptions of important visual info.

Read on to see these tips in action.

Tip 1: Break videos into short chunks with clear headings

It’s important to keep your video short and to the point. If you need to make multiple points in one video, it’s best to organize them into short chunks. A list structure can be helpful. Start with a clear main message that each list item supports. Use distinct visual styling to make it clear when each section starts. This helps people skim through your video to quickly find relevant info.

Example video with clear headings

The video below is from the US Department of Health and Human Services. It uses a list structure to organize content into short sections. It uses clear visual headings that make it easy to identify the different sections. This makes it easy to skim through the video.

Learn more about usable videos

• Use the PEMAT A/V to assess your videos through a health literacy lens.
• Use the CDC Clear Communication Index to assess your multimedia content.

Tip 2: Include closed captions & transcripts

Not everyone can hear your video. And people who can hear it might not hear every word. Closed captions and transcripts help more people engage with your message. Plus, they provide more text that can help your message pop up in search engine results. It’s fine to start with auto-generated captions and transcripts. Just make sure to edit them.

Closed captions provide a text version of videos’ spoken words and audio info. They are timed so someone looking at the video gets the same info as someone hearing it. Video platforms tend to let users control closed captions’ appearance. This is better than a text layer you add to a video when you make it, which users can’t change to suit their needs.

Transcripts also provide text versions of videos’ spoken words and audio info. But they’re not timed to match the pace of your video. Transcripts are key for people who engage with web content through screen readers. They’re also key for people who want or need more time with your message. Unlike closed captions, transcripts need to stand on their own. You might include screenshots, with alt text and descriptions for accessibility. You might also include bracketed headings and explanations to make the transcript more usable.

Example closed captions and transcript

The screenshots below come from a CDC video about PrEP. They show the importance of closed caption files, even when a video includes a text layer. The first screenshot shows the video’s text layer: a black sans serif font against a translucent white background. This text layer may be good enough for many users. The second screenshot displays the same video, but with user-customized closed captions. The text is in a much larger sans serif font, in yellow against an opaque black background. Someone who needs this customization would not perceive the message in the video’s built-in text layer.

The screenshot below depicts a descriptive transcript from the Web Accessibility Initiative. It displays key features that make the transcript more usable while staying true to the video content, including:

• Punctuation like quotation marks, commas, and parentheses to make the text more readable.
• Labels to identify speakers other than the main presenter.
• Bracketed headings to help people scroll through the text while conveying that the original video does not include them.

Learn how to make closed captions and transcripts

• Follow the transcript guide from the Web Accessibility Initiative.
• Manage closed captions on Instagram.
• Manage closed captions on YouTube.
• Manage closed captions on Facebook.

Tip 3: Include audio descriptions of important visual info

Not everyone who engages with your videos can see them. Not everyone who can see them will keep their eyes on the screen the whole time. Include audio descriptions to make sure people listening to your videos get the same info as people looking at them. If you host your own videos, you can use a player like Able Player, which lets users toggle audio descriptions.

If you upload your videos to social platforms like YouTube, you still have options. You can always add an extra audio track to your video while editing it. Then you have the choice of uploading the audio-described video alone or alongside the original. If you want to avoid this choice, include audio descriptions in your scripts from the beginning.

Examples of audio descriptions

The video below is from Web Accessibility Initiative. This example includes audio descriptions of necessary visual info. This might be a good option for a simple educational video.

The video below is also from Web Accessibility Initiative. It includes a separate audio description track. This is a good option for videos with a lot of videos or images illustrating important points. However, you could also rewrite the narrator’s script to include this same info.

Learn how to make audio descriptions

• Use the Web Accessibility Initiative guide to descriptions of visual information.

Conclusion

This tipsheet offers advice on making videos more usable and accessible as health communication:

• Divide your video into short sections with clear headings
• Use closed captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions for better accessibility.

This tipsheet is part of a series on clear communication. It bridges knowledge from health literacy, web accessibility, and journalism to help you elevate your health communication. Combine your videos with clearer writing and accessible graphs and tables for even more impact.

This tipsheet was prepared by Samuel R. Mendez. It was reviewed by Amanda Yarnell and Elissa Scherer.