Audio Description (Prerecorded)
Tier 1 · The normative floor
Baseline compliance
What the normative text of WCAG 2.2 requires, and nothing more. Only a failure of this tier is a WCAG failure.
The bare minimum
Prerecorded video in synchronized media has audio description: narration added to describe important visual details that can't be understood from the main soundtrack alone.
Normative text
Verbatim from WCAG 2.2, W3C Recommendation 12 December 2024. Underlined terms are defined below.
Audio description is provided for all prerecorded video content in synchronized media.
Not required by the normative text
Common claims that this criterion does not support. Don't log these as WCAG failures.
- Added narration when the soundtrack already conveys all important visual information. The definition covers only details that can't be understood from the soundtrack.
- Extended audio description that pauses the video. That's 1.2.7, Level AAA.
Definitions used (4)
Glossary definitions are normative. Their notes are informative.
- audio description
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narration added to the soundtrack to describe important visual details that cannot be understood from the main soundtrack alone
Informative notes (4)
Audio description of video provides information about actions, characters, scene changes, on-screen text, and other visual content.
In standard audio description, narration is added during existing pauses in dialogue. (See also extended audio description.)
Where all of the video information is already provided in existing audio, no additional audio description is necessary.
Also called "video description" and "descriptive narration."
- prerecorded
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information that is not live
- video
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the technology of moving or sequenced pictures or images
Informative notes (1)
Video can be made up of animated or photographic images, or both.
- synchronized media
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audio or video synchronized with another format for presenting information and/or with time-based interactive components, unless the media is a media alternative for text that is clearly labeled as such
Tier 2 · The gap
Usability & user impact
Where content can meet this criterion and still make things harder for people with disabilities. These are not failures of SC 1.2.5, so raise them as usability defects. Known failures, including failures of related criteria, are listed in Tier 1.
Description squeezed into short pauses can leave out context. A separate described version is often hard to find, or lags behind updates to the main video.
Tier 3 · The golden path
Recommended best practice
The pattern that meets the floor, closes the gap, and avoids audit disputes. A recommendation, not a requirement.
Write description into the script so the narration explains what's on screen. Where a separate track is needed, offer it from the same player.
W3C's Understanding document and techniques for SC 1.2.5 ↗ are informative: sufficient techniques show ways to pass, and documented failures show common ways to fail, but neither changes what the criterion requires.
How SC 1.2.5 maps to the WCAG 3 draft
From this site's reviewed map to the WCAG 3 editor's draft. It's an interpretation: W3C has not published a mapping.
Successor provisions
From WCAG 2.2, section 5.1: “The main content of WCAG 2.2 is normative and defines requirements that impact conformance claims. Introductory material, appendices, sections marked as "non-normative", diagrams, examples, and notes are informative (non-normative). Non-normative material provides advisory information to help interpret the guidelines but does not create requirements that impact a conformance claim.”