The ADA Title II rule for digital accessibility comes into effect in April 2026. This rule requires that all UW web content meet accessibility standards and includes accessibility requirements for videos (e.g., captions for people who are unable to hear the audio; audio description for people who are unable to see the video).
UW-IT Accessible Technology Services (ATS) has partnered with 3Play Media to improve the accessibility of UW videos, focusing initially on public-facing videos on YouTube. The following steps are specifically intended for the owners of UW-affiliated YouTube channels. However, if you are responsible for UW-affiliated videos published elsewhere (e.g., Panopto, Vimeo, Canvas) these steps apply to you as well, except for those steps specifically identified as “YouTube only”.
Step 1. Review your videos and clean house.
- If videos are no longer needed, remove them.
- If videos are needed purely for historical purposes, they may qualify as an “archive” under the ADA rule. Consult the Archived Web Content page from the UW Civil Rights Compliance Office for guidance. If any of your videos qualify as “archives”, they will need to be properly identified as an “archive” by appending “(ARCHIVE)” to the video title.
Step 2. Prioritize videos for captioning.
Any UW videos that still require captioning after Step 1will need to be submitted manually for captioning. This includes YouTube videos, as well as videos that are hosted elsewhere.
We are unable to caption all UW videos, so we ask that you prioritize videos, and submit only those that are the highest priority (e.g., based on views or criticality of their content).
For YouTube videos, YouTube Caption Auditor (YTCA) can help. YTCA is a tool developed in-house and available to YouTube channel owners. It enables users to see a table of all the videos in their channel, and sort videos by publication date, views, and/or whether the videos have been captioned. This can be a very helpful tool for prioritizing videos. YouTube channel owners can request a YTCA account via our Accessibility Consulting Request Form. Please include the following information in your request:
- YouTube channel owner’s name and email
- Name and URL of YouTube channel
- UW affiliation (e.g., name of college, department, or unit)
High priority videos can be submitted for captioning via the UW-IT Captioning and Audio Description Service. See Step 6 for details.
Step 3. Review and edit automated captions.
Recent improvements of AI can be observed in the quality of automatic captioning. However, AI captions still have limitations and all captions should be reviewed for accuracy and edited if needed.
In particular, automatic captions may not include the names of speakers. This is especially important for content that includes multiple speakers. Each speaker should be identified in square brackets each time there is a change in speakers. For example:
[Robert Jones] We are at a time of rapid and profound change.
In YouTube, captions can be edited using the YouTube Caption Editor. For instructions, see Edit or remove captions in the YouTube Help Center.
Links to techniques for uploading and editing captions on other platforms are available on our Captions page.
Step 4. Prioritize videos for audio description.
Audio description is a narration track that verbally describes key visual content that is not accessible via audio alone. Additional information is available on our Audio Description page. Note that some videos do not require audio description. An important step is to review your videos to identify those where audio description is critical for understanding the video’s content. Videos can be prioritized as follows based on the need for audio description:
- High need – Nothing makes sense with audio alone.
- Medium need – The video is generally understandable, but critical details are lost.
- Low need – Some information is lost, but it isn’t critical.
High priority videos that have a high need for audio description can be submitted for audio description via the UW-IT Captioning and Audio Description Service. See Step 5 for details.
Step 5. Submit requests for remediation of your highest priority videos.
ATS will caption a limited number of UW videos without charge through a service supported by UW-IT. Please complete Steps 1 through 5 before submitting videos to this service. The remaining videos should be:
- Videos that do not contain content that is subject to HIPAA compliance.
- Videos that are still needed and therefore cannot be removed.
- Videos that do not qualify as “archives” based on criteria in the ADA Title II rule.
- Videos that are deemed high priority based on traffic or criticality of content.
- YouTube videos that are not automatically captioned in Step 2, based on the predefined scope.
- Videos that have a high need for audio description.
To request captioning or audio description through this service, please complete the Captioning and Audio Description Service Application.
NOTE: This service is NOT a replacement for an active accommodation. Videos must be owned by UW, in order for the caption and/or audio description file to be uploaded.