developing Core requirement

Visual Information Identified In Audio Descriptions

Group: images-and-media • Guideline: audio-descriptions

Summary in Plain English

Whatever the picture carries and the soundtrack does not - actions, documents, expressions, on-screen text - is spoken in the audio description.

Why It Matters

This is the core of the technique: what the picture carries and the soundtrack does not is exactly what a blind viewer would otherwise lose.

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/audio-descriptions/visual-information-identified-in-audio-descriptions.md. These are the questions the group has written down as unresolved — not a summary of discussion written here.

This includes actions, charts or informative visuals, scene changes, and on-screen text,

W3C Threads on This Provision

1 GitHub thread carrying 0 comments, 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.

#470 Separate this into two? - Meaningful visual information (Foundational) closed 0 comments · updated 2026-09-10

W3C Raw Source Text

Verbatim from guidelines/groups/images-and-media/audio-descriptions/visual-information-identified-in-audio-descriptions.md · informative document: informative/guidelines/images-and-media/audio-descriptions/visual-information-identified-in-audio-descriptions.md

Visual information needed to understand the media is described in audio descriptions.

:::ednote
* This includes actions, charts or informative visuals, scene changes, and on-screen text,
:::