You put a short welcome video on the home page, a few customer testimonials on the services page, and last year’s recorded webinar on the resources page. The platform switched on automatic captions, so you assumed that was handled. Then an audit came back saying the captions are not good enough, or a Deaf customer wrote to say the testimonials were impossible to follow.
Video captions for accessibility are not hard to get right, but “the platform made some” rarely counts as right. This post covers what captions need to contain, how to fix auto-generated ones, how embeds from YouTube and Vimeo fit in, how self-hosted video works in WordPress, and which videos do not need captions at all.
Video captions for accessibility: what WCAG asks
The criterion is 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded), at Level A, the most basic level. Any prerecorded video with an audio track needs captions. That covers talking-head videos, testimonials, product demos with narration, recorded webinars and event highlights with speeches.
There is one narrow exception: when the video is itself an alternative for text already on the page and is clearly labeled that way, such as a sign language version of a written notice. Most business videos are not that.
Captions are more than the words. WCAG’s own explanation of captions includes speaker identification and meaningful sounds: “[phone rings]”, “[laughter]”, “[upbeat music]”, “[door slams]”. If a sound changes what the viewer understands, it belongs in the captions. Background music that adds nothing can be noted once or left out.
Live video, such as a webinar streamed as it happens, has its own criterion at Level AA. It needs real-time captioning, which is a different service from editing a file afterwards, so plan for it separately if you stream.
Captions, subtitles, open and closed
These words get mixed up, and the difference matters when you brief someone.
| Term | What it is | Accessibility notes |
|---|---|---|
| Closed captions | A separate text track the viewer can switch on or off, usually with a CC button. | The usual choice for a website. Viewers can often resize or restyle them. |
| Open (burned-in) captions | Text drawn into the picture itself. | Always visible, which some people like. Cannot be resized or turned off, and contrast depends on the picture behind. |
| Subtitles | Usually a translation of the dialogue for viewers who can hear. | Often leave out speaker names and sounds, so they may not meet the caption requirement on their own. |
Burned-in captions are common on clips made for social media, and they can satisfy 1.2.2 if they are complete and readable. For videos made for your site, closed captions are more flexible. If you have both, make sure the two do not overlap on screen.
Auto captions: a first draft to edit
Speech recognition has improved a lot, and auto-generated captions are a reasonable starting point. They are not a finished job. The mistakes they make are predictable:
- Names of people, streets, towns and products come out wrong.
- Numbers, prices, dates and phone numbers get garbled, which matters most when someone needs to act on them.
- Industry terms turn into similar-sounding everyday words, sometimes embarrassingly.
- Punctuation is missing, so long strings of words run together.
- Speaker changes are not marked, and sounds are left out entirely.
- Two people talking over each other produce nonsense.
A caption that says the wrong medication name, or a wrong phone number, is worse than an obvious gap, because the viewer trusts it.
Here is a sensible order for editing:
- Let the platform or a captioning tool generate the draft.
- Watch the video once with the captions on and the sound on, correcting words as you go.
- Add speaker names where it is not obvious who is talking, and add sound descriptions in square brackets.
- Fix line breaks so each caption is a readable chunk, not half a sentence that runs into the next.
- Check timing: captions should appear with the speech, not seconds before or after.
- Watch once more with the sound off. If you can follow the whole video, the captions work.
For a two-minute testimonial this is a short job. For an hour-long webinar, it is a real task, and it is fair to budget time or outside help for it.
Closed captions for website videos on YouTube and Vimeo
Most small business sites embed video from YouTube or Vimeo rather than hosting it. In that case the captions live on the platform, not on your site. Both platforms let the video owner upload a caption file or edit captions in their own settings, and both players show a captions control that viewers can switch on. The exact menu names change from time to time, so follow the platform’s current help pages rather than an old screenshot.
A few things to check on the website side:
- The right video. If someone re-uploaded an edited version, the captions often stayed on the old one. The embed on your page may point to a version with none.
- Player controls. Some embed settings hide the player controls for a cleaner look. That can also hide the captions button and make the video impossible to pause with a keyboard.
- Keyboard access. Press Tab until you reach the video. You should be able to see where focus is, start and pause playback, and switch captions on without a mouse.
- A title. Embedded players are frames inside your page, and screen readers announce their title. A frame announced as just “video” or with no name at all is hard to pick out.
The basics of placing the embed in the first place are covered in our guide to embedding a YouTube video in WordPress. If you are also posting on social platforms, those have their own caption tools, and a clip shared there does not inherit captions from your site.
Self-hosted video in WordPress
When the video file is in your own Media Library, the captions have to be a file too. The standard web format is WebVTT, a plain text file with the extension .vtt that pairs each caption with a start and end time. Many caption editors can export it, and some video platforms let owners download their captions in this format.
The core WordPress Video block lets you attach text tracks to a video, which is where the .vtt file goes. You pick the file, set its kind (captions or subtitles) and its language. Video players added by themes, page builders or plugins vary: some support caption tracks well, some ignore them. After you add a track, load the page, start the video and look for a captions control. If there is none, the player is the problem, not your file.
Self-hosting brings other questions, like file size and whether the player itself works with a keyboard. If you have trouble getting videos to play at all, our post on self-hosted versus embedded video problems may help before you get to captions.
Background videos and silent clips
A muted video loop behind your hero text has no audio, so it does not need captions. It has a different issue. If moving content starts on its own, runs longer than five seconds and sits alongside other content, 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide expects a way to pause or stop it. Many themes do not provide one. A small, visible pause button that works with a keyboard solves it. Motion can also trouble people with vestibular disorders, which we cover in our post on reducing motion and animation.
Background video also costs page weight, a separate concern explained in our post on whether a background video slows your site.
Silent product demos where the important information is visual, such as a screen recording of how to use your booking system with no narration, need a text alternative instead of captions. And a video whose narration is fine but whose key information is only on screen may need described visuals. That overlaps with transcripts, which our post on transcripts and audio description covers.
Which videos to caption first
If you have a backlog, sort it. A sensible order, most urgent first:
- Videos on your home page and main service or product pages.
- Anything with instructions, prices, safety information or dates.
- Testimonials and explainer videos linked from ads or emails.
- Recorded webinars and talks people still watch.
- Old event highlights. Consider removing the ones nobody needs.
Video captions for accessibility are one part of the content work an editor controls, alongside headings, links, images and documents, as described in our guide to writing accessible web content. For a site with years of video to clean up, our media accessibility services page explains how that can be handled, and our website accessibility hub shows how it fits with audits and fixes elsewhere on the site.
Frequently asked questions
Are YouTube auto-generated captions good enough for accessibility?
Usually not as they come. They are a useful draft, but they tend to get names, numbers and specialist terms wrong, they leave out punctuation, and they do not identify speakers or describe sounds. Edit them before you rely on them, and watch the video with the sound off afterwards to check you can follow it.
Do videos with only music need captions?
If the music is just background and nothing is said, a short note such as a caption reading upbeat music, or a sentence near the video, is enough. If lyrics matter to the message, caption them. A muted decorative loop with no audio at all needs no captions, though it may need a pause control.
Can I put a transcript on the page instead of adding captions?
Not for video with speech. A transcript is valuable and helps many people, but WCAG still expects captions for prerecorded video with audio, because a viewer needs the words in sync with the picture. A transcript works best alongside captions. For audio without video, such as a podcast, a transcript is the main text alternative.
What caption file format does WordPress use?
For self-hosted video, browsers use WebVTT files, which end in .vtt. The core Video block lets you attach them as text tracks. Some caption tools export SRT files instead; those can usually be converted to WebVTT with a free converter or by exporting again in the right format from the tool that made them.
Captions are a fix you can make on almost any site. Sometimes, though, the video player the theme uses ignores caption tracks, or hides its controls, or autoplays in a way you cannot turn off. If the template keeps working against you, an accessible redesign of the site can put a player and layout in place that support captions from the start.
Next in this series: Transcripts for Accessibility: Podcasts and Audio
