Re: Styling Captions (was RE: VTT/CSS (was RE: Evidence of 'Wide Review' needed for VTT))

On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 11:56 AM, John Foliot <john@foliot.ca> wrote:
>> Second, there's the styling from the VTT author, which apply to only
>> that single file. Use cases include emphasis on certain types of cues
>> (music, voiceover, etc) and certain ranges of cues (e.g. repositioning
>> when the default region overlaps with in-video text). It's preferred to
>> have these rules live inside the VTT, as it makes for easier authoring,
>> file management, conversion to other formats and implementation of
>> parsers (outside of HTML browsers).
>>
>> Third, the end user can override the styles an author has set (or, more
>> common, set additional rules). This is specific to the individual user
>> and relates to the FCC options end users can set in video players. As
>> David said, through CSS but more importantly system-wide menus
>> (iOS/Android/etc) or options in the video player
>> (YouTube/JWPlayer/etc).
>
> Scenarios 2 & 3 SHOULD be modifiable by the end user. The means to make these
> modifications would likely best be integrated with the 'player', but could
> also be achieved through user style-sheets. However, given the complexity of
> creating user style-sheets, good players should offer a simpler means of
> making some basic changes (I am thinking, for example of font size, font-face,
> foreground and background colors as the most basic sub-set). While I can
> follow up with the appropriate WAI groups (likely WCAG WG and UAAG WG - the
> User Agent Accessibility Guidelines WG) I wonder again out loud whether this
> type of basic authoring guidance should be provided in the VTT spec itself. If
> there is a general feeling that this isn't a bad idea, David I would be
> willing to try my hand on a first-pass paragraph or two as non-normative
> content for the spec. Thoughts?

A short, non-normative reference to core requirements from FCC, WCAG
and others will be very helpful! As you say, it's about such items as
font size/family/color and background color/opacity. For guidance, the
bottom part of this blog post contains a few screenshots of CC styling
interfaces in 'players' (YouTube/PBS and iOS/Android):

http://www.jwplayer.com/blog/implementing-fcc-closed-captioning-mandates/

- Jeroen

Received on Wednesday, 21 January 2015 19:35:52 UTC