How to make subtitles readable to
everyone?

 

By Emmanuelle ABOAF

ID24 - September 22th, 2023

Here is my transcript

Here is the short link:

https://bit.ly/id24-captions-transcription

QR code to access the transcript

About me

  • French Deaf with two cochlear implants
  • Fullstack developer
  • Work at Shodo Paris
  • Member of Duchess France
  • Member of CNCF Deaf and Hard of Hearing Working group
  • Team #a11y
Logo Shodo

Why subtitle?

  • According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 5% of the world's population, or 430 million, are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (HoH) ;
  • It helps people with others disabilities and people who are not native speakers of the language in the video ;
  • 85% of videos are watched without sound ;
  • Subtitles can also be used for marketing purposes ;
  • Subtitles are good for SEO.

What is the difference between subtitles and captions?

Subtitles vs Captions

Subtitles

Subtitles do not have any sound indications.

They are the transcribed or translated dialogues.

Captions

Captions are subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing people.

Captions contain sound indications.

We also use the term : Open Captions and Closed Captions.

Two kind of captions

Closed Captions

Closed captions are user-enabled captions.

 

According to the plateforms, users can choose :

  • font
  • font size
  • color of captions
  • add background with color on captions.

Open Captions

Captions are embedded in the video. Everyone sees the captions.


The users have no choice as to the display and the format of the captions.

So, let's talk about open captions.

Demonstrations

Meryl Evans

"Without further ado ... I've created a brand new side-by-side video. One uses captioning best practices (except it's open instead of closed) and the other uses different types of Hormozi-style options. Which do you prefer?"

Demonstration of Meryl Evans on Twitter/X

Alexa Heinrich

"This is what I mean when I say that kinetic captions are a bad idea and not very accessible!"

Demonstration of Alexa Heinrich on Twitter/X

What criteria should be respected when creating captions?

Contrasts matters.

A pancake half filled with avocados, tuna and salmon on a white plate. White captions appear in kinetic format on the white plate: I decided to make this version a little sushi
A same pancake totally filled with avocados, tuna and salmon on a white plate. But this time, the captions that we barely saw before, we no longer see them even though they are there.
A woman with a striped top with red, blue and yellow colors. Captions are white: "Could the ugly untalented gays, please report to the principal's office?

Font matters.

A woman in a wheelchair is dressed as a barbie with pink captions surrounded by white. Captions are fancy font. Captions display "I can't get throught there.
The text of the captions is french but I translated in english: "to the issue of disability and making the connection".

Size matters.

On second photo, a woman with little white captions in french. I can’t read them. I do not know what is captioned.
Two actresses are promoting their film "Then you run". White captions appear and are small: "We've watched the first episode of the series".

NO CAPS.

On first photo : a teacher with his student who shows him his grades. It is titled at the top in white with a black banner "When the teacher messes up on the test". The captions appear at the bottom in red and uppercase: "I didn't really get question 11".
A sepia-colored photo with a man from behind and his suitcase. French captions are red and capitalized: "It's much worse than we say.”

No animations and

no flashing captions.

Do not summarize, do not change the context.

Always captions on up
to two lines.

Texts and subtitles should not overlap.

A man is giving a speech on a desk. On his desk, it is displayed Sciences Po (a French graduate school) with another text that I can not read to you because there is a caption above. This white caption in French is displayed: "European nations are much too small".

Pay attention to captions’s placement.

During a video of the haka, a woman is seen making faces but a black subtitle with a white headband "let us proceeed" hides her grimace.
Two athletes at the Olympics congratulate each other for being champions. White captions with the black banner are displayed behind the icons and texts and cannot be read properly.

Sounds must be described.

How to describe the sounds?

  • [applause]
  • [lyrical flute solo]
  • [The Beatles singing “Hey Jude”]
  • ♪ Hey Jude, don't make it bad. ♪♪
  • [Piper] Thank you.
  • [Chris] You're welcome.
  • [Speaking French] Bonjour. 

Captioning Key - Sound Effects and Music

You can use automatic captions provided you correct them afterwards.

Auto captions

When you use auto captions during the live, correct them in replay as here at Inclusive Design 24 because they aren't 100% accurate.

 

When you create videos, you can use the automatic tools to caption automatically but don't forget to fix them.

 

Mixing artificial intelligence and human intelligence helps to make the experience better.

Careful to craptions!

(pun between crap and captions)

What are THE perfect captions?

THE perfect captions

  • Do not make spelling, grammar or conjugation mistakes in any language.
  • Respect the color format: white with a black or half-black background.
  • Pay attention to font size.
  • Choose a sans serif font.
  • Pay attention to placement.
  • No caps, no animations and no flashing on captions.
  • Sounds must be described.
  • Always captions on up to two lines.
  • Do not use only automatic captioning and always correct it.

When you create captions, think about the readability of your captions.

 

Don't caption just because it's pretty.

 

Caption because you want your message to be read by everyone.

Thank you!

Follow me on :

QR code to access slides

Slides

Resources

Video resources