a11y teacher edition W3C WCAG 2.2 & WCAG 3.0 draft reference
Plain English Accessibility Hub

Translating W3C Standards for Designers, Developers, QA & Product teams

โš ๏ธ W3C Working Draft Notice

WCAG 3.0 is an active W3C Working Draft in development by the AGWG. Requirements, assertions, the conformance model and reporting tiers are still being developed and may change. The latest published draft is the 10 September 2026 Working Draft; this site follows the editorsโ€™ draft, which also includes exploratory provisions.

developing Core requirement

Dialogue transcripts available (live)

Group: images-and-media • Guideline: transcripts

Summary in Plain English

Live audio and video have a transcript of the dialogue. Media that is an alternative for text and labelled as such, and media with no spoken content that serves only as background, are exempt.

Why It Matters

A live transcript is what lets someone catch up on a point they missed, which captions scrolling in real time do not allow.

Scope: When This Applies

The draft's own conditions, quoted from guidelines/groups/images-and-media/transcripts/dialogue-transcripts-available-live.md.

Except when

  • The audio or video content is an alternative for text and is clearly labeled as such.
  • The audio or video has no spoken content and serves only as background.