WCAG 1.2.4 Captions (Live) Explained

What is the 1.2.4 Captions (Live) Guideline?

The 1.2.4 Captions (Live) Guideline can be found in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), Level AA. These guidelines are the recognized standard for measuring a website’s American with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance.

This guideline helps users who are deaf or hard of hearing understand live media presentations on a website. Live media is defined as audio and/or video content that is transmitted live via the internet. Note that subtitles aren’t captions. The difference between the two is that subtitles only provide the dialogue of a media presentation, nothing else.

A prime example of the 1.2.4 Captions (Live) guideline would be a TV news broadcast that allows users to turn on captions so they can understand what’s being reported. Another example would be a live musical performance. Not only should the captions give users the lyrics to any song, but they should also give the name of the performers, any musician solos, sound effects and audience reactions.

Live captions are not meant for an internet call between the user and someone else. For instance, if a user calls into a meeting, the meeting doesn’t have to be captioned.

Whoever is providing the content is tasked with providing the captions. In most cases, that’s the website owner.

Benefits of 1.2.4 Captions (Live) Guideline

By providing captions, you allow users with hearing problems to experience live media events on your website as non-disabled users do. It also benefits users who have an easier time understanding written content rather than listening to it.

On a practical level, captions can even help non-disabled users who find themselves in a situation where it’s difficult to hear an audio track. Someone who is watching the news on their phone can turn on captions if they’re in a noisy train station, for example.

Sufficient Techniques To Pass Criterion

There are two ways to make your website’s live media compliant with the 1.2.4 Live Captions guideline. You can choose to provide open captions, meaning they are always on, or closed caption, which means they can be turned on and off by the user. For open captions, it’s important to make sure they don’t block any important information being presented in the video.

Because the media element is live, the captions should be in sync with what’s being presented, whether they’re open or closed. Captions should also be accurate. Inaccurate captions not only diminish the user experience, they can also lead to embarrassing mistakes that give a website the wrong kind of attention.

Be aware that not all media players provide captions. Don’t assume that any live media presentations you put on your website will have them by default. If your media player doesn’t provide captioning, the easiest and lowest cost solution is to choose a media player that does.

The alternative is to work with a vendor that provides live captioning services. This is the more expensive choice. Even though captions generated by artificial intelligence (AI) have improved considerably in the last few years, captions provided by a trained person are still more accurate—for now. Many news organizations have in-house captioning providers to ensure accuracy.

Does Your Website Fail the 1.2.4 Captions (Live) Guideline?

If the answer to this question is yes, or you’re not sure, let our team help you make your website ADA compliant. We offer comprehensive manual website audits that check for all non-compliant elements as outlined in the WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA guidelines.

Be aware that even one non-compliant element makes your entire website non-compliant. That can make you vulnerable to a costly lawsuit. Visit our WCAG Audit service page for more information on how we can help make your website accessible.