Extended 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
Where pauses in the foreground audio are too short for audio description to convey the sense of the video, extended audio description is provided: the video pauses so there is time for more description. Applies to prerecorded video in synchronized media.
Normative text
Verbatim from WCAG 2.2, W3C Recommendation 12 December 2024. Underlined terms are defined below.
Where pauses in foreground audio are insufficient to allow audio descriptions to convey the sense of the video, extended 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.
- Pausing the video when the existing pauses are long enough for the description.
Definitions used (5)
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."
- extended audio description
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audio description that is added to an audiovisual presentation by pausing the video so that there is time to add additional description
Informative notes (1)
This technique is only used when the sense of the video would be lost without the additional audio description and the pauses between dialogue/narration are too short.
- 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 1.2.7, so raise them as usability defects. Known failures, including failures of related criteria, are listed in Tier 1.
Frequent pauses can make the experience choppy if the description is longer than it needs to be.
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.
Keep extended descriptions tight. Offer the extended version as a choice alongside the standard one.
W3C's Understanding document and techniques for SC 1.2.7 ↗ 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 1.2.7 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.”