In plain English
Not all media has both sound and picture. Sometimes it is audio only (a podcast, an audio message) and sometimes it is video only (a silent looping clip showing a product spin). Each leaves someone out:
- Audio only shuts out deaf and hard-of-hearing people, so provide a transcript.
- Silent video shuts out blind people, so provide a text description (or an audio track that narrates it).
Who this is for
- Deaf and hard-of-hearing people, who need audio content as text.
- Blind and low-vision people, who need silent visuals described.
How to check and fix it yourself
List your audio-only and silent-video content and give each the missing piece:
Podcast episode (audio only) → add a text transcript on the page. ✓
Silent "how it works" loop → add a short caption/description below. ✓
Purely decorative motion → no action needed (conveys nothing).A transcript is just the spoken words typed out; a video description is a couple of sentences on what the clip shows.
Where we can help
We identify every audio-only and video-only item on your store and tell you exactly what each needs (transcript vs description), so nothing important is locked to one sense. See also our captions and ADA guide.