How To Make Your Online Content More Accessible?
Published On :10 December,2009
As the popularity of online video websites soar in the market, more and more website owners are waking up to realize the massive potential of video and the advantages that it can provide for their business.
Videos can provide great value addition to your website. Not only can you provide rich interactive content to your audiences but also demonstrate your products and service more effectively. However, in order to ensure rich user experience, you need to make sure your video content is accessible to the users.
Here are some tips to make your video content more accessible:
Use Transcripts and Subtitles
It is important to remember that your website user base might consist of hearing-impaired users as well. Therefore, make sure you use transcripts and subtitles on all your videos so that even if someone cannot hear what is going on, they can still read the content. This way you can also cater to people who find it easier to read rather than listen. Moreover, users with mobile phones who may not have earphones or are in a noisy place also benefit if you provide subtitles to the videos.
Cater to Keyboard Only Users
Many online video players don't cater to keyboard only users. This is because the key-press functionality that is needed for the same increases the amount of JavaScript that is required. And when optimizing for different browsers, the process becomes even more complicated. Popular browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Safari requires similar code but IE needs a different one.
Use JavaScript Unobtrusively
The basic informative and functional elements of the web pages should be coded using HTML and the extra, so called decorative elements should be implemented through JavaScript on top of HTML. It is quite easy to differentiate between the functional and decorative elements on your web pages. Determine what elements contribute to make functional actions and which ones just stay on for visual appeal. Make sure all the functional elements can be controlled by the keyboard and only the functionality of decorative elements are restricted to the mouse.
Build in FLV Format
.flv is a popular video format. It makes your videos light and fasten their download speed drastically. As a result, users are not faced with prolonged buffering times and they get to see videos more quickly.
Provide a Volume Control
In addition to the slider control, also provide a drop down list that can be controlled wit the keyboard and allows users to set the volume to quiet, medium or loud without having to drag the mouse. This is allow keyboard-only users and users who might be viewing the videos through mobile phone devices to control the sound of the video.
The phenomena of online video and other forms of multimedia functionalities are on the rise. Users have started to prefer these rich and interactive content delivery systems instead of plain textual content. So, it is important to stay in the loop and make sure that you cater effectively to your user needs and demands.
Maneet Puri is a Managing Director of Lexolution IT Services., a professional web services company based in India. Having an experience of more than 10 years in the website design and development industry, he guides a team of professional web developers to create professional web solutions for client.
