Success Criterion 1.2.5
Conformance level AA

Transcript Offered Instead of a Required Audio Description Track

1.2.5 — Audio Description (Prerecorded)

Scenario

Setting

An email client's compose window

What’s wrong

At AA, providing only a transcript and no audio description when pauses exist to accommodate description (transcript satisfied 1.2.3 but not 1.2.5).

Example

<video src="tutorial.mp4"></video>

Why it matters

Blind and low-vision viewers who need spoken descriptions of important visuals.

How to test

Check whether only a transcript (no audio description) is provided even though the video has pauses that could carry description: at AA level, transcript alone is insufficient here.

How to fix

An audio description track must describe all important visual-only content, using available pauses in dialogue.

<video src="tutorial.mp4">

  <track kind="descriptions" src="ad-en.vtt" srclang="en">

</video>

Audio description narrates visual actions and on-screen content during the video's existing pauses.

Outcome

On an email client's compose window, this barrier is gone for blind and low-vision viewers who need spoken descriptions of important visuals — they can finish what they came here to do.

Who is affected