developing Core requirement

Sounds Identified In Transcripts

Group: images-and-media • Guideline: transcripts

Summary in Plain English

Where sound carries meaning and the video is not decorative, the transcript records what the sound was, alongside the dialogue.

Why It Matters

For a reader who never hears the audio, an unmarked sound is simply an event that did not happen.

Scope: When This Applies

The draft's own conditions, quoted from guidelines/groups/images-and-media/transcripts/sounds-identified-in-transcripts.md.

Applies when

there is sound.

Except when

the video is decorative.

W3C Working Group Status

W3C Maturity Status: developing

Track / Group: images-and-media

Open Questions Recorded in the Draft

The editors' own notes (:::ednote) in guidelines/groups/images-and-media/transcripts/sounds-identified-in-transcripts.md. These are the questions the group has written down as unresolved — not a summary of discussion written here.

This includes sound effects and other non-spoken audio content.

W3C Threads on This Provision

1 GitHub thread carrying 1 comment, fetched from w3c/wcag3 by the tracker. Titles, numbers and states are the threads' own.

Nobody has read these threads and written up the positions yet, so only the threads themselves are listed.

#520 [Sounds Identified]: contradicts “transcripts available”? open 1 comment · updated 2026-10-13

W3C Raw Source Text

Verbatim from guidelines/groups/images-and-media/transcripts/sounds-identified-in-transcripts.md · informative document: informative/guidelines/images-and-media/transcripts/sounds-identified-in-transcripts.md

Sounds needed to understand the media are identified or described in transcripts.

:::ednote
This includes sound effects and other non-spoken audio content.
:::

:::applies-when
- there is sound.
:::

:::except-when
- the video is decorative.
:::