video and long text descriptions / transcripts

Hi all,

I would like to see a (civilized) discussion of a core question that
relates to the issues 194 and 203 [2] for video.

[1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/194
[2] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/203

We keep talking about "long text descriptions for videos" and
"transcripts" as separate things. There is an implied assumption that
we need two different solutions for these, which I would like to
challenge.

The question I'd like to see discussed is this:
Do we need more than one type of long textual description linked with
a video element?

I.e. do we need both a solution for transcripts and for long textual
descriptions?

To explain my reasoning in more detail:
--
The main accessibility user that we are minting a solution for by
attaching a long text description to a video element is a deaf-blind
user who has no other choice but to read a long text description that
represents the video. Deaf users get captions and blind users get
audio descriptions, so there already is a solution for them. Other
users would get markup directly on the page which does not need
programmatic association.

In my understanding, a deaf-blind user would be best served with a
long text description that is a transcript of everything being said in
the video plus a description of everything that is visible in the
video (and contributes to the semantics). Such a long textual
description is exactly what I call a "transcript" (or "transcription"
which is likely more inclusive of the scene description information).

Therefore I conclude that the only programmatically linked long
description that we need for the video element is a transcription.
--

Please disagree with me, so we can better understand the use cases
(but let's stay civilized - I am not trying to suppress anyone's
needs, merely asking a question the answers to which will lead to more
or less complex and therefore more or less usable solutions).

Regards,
Silvia.

Received on Friday, 30 March 2012 21:53:28 UTC