In plain English
Sound that starts on its own, an auto-playing video with audio, a background track, is more than annoying. For a screen-reader user it is a disaster: it plays over the top of the screen reader’s voice, so they cannot hear the software they rely on to use your site at all. This rule says: if audio auto-plays for more than 3 seconds, give people an easy way to stop or mute it.
The cleanest answer is simply not to auto-play sound.
Who this is for
- Screen-reader users, whose software is drowned out by auto-playing audio.
- People with attention or cognitive differences, who are derailed by unexpected sound.
- Everyone, who dislikes surprise noise.
How to check and fix it yourself
Load your pages fresh. Does anything make noise on its own? If so, either stop it auto-playing or add a clear control.
Best: videos and audio start muted / on press-play. ✓
OK: an obvious mute/pause control at the top of the page. ✓
Fail: background audio plays with no way to stop it. ✗Where we can help
Auto-play often sneaks in through hero videos or third-party widgets. We catch anything that makes noise unprompted and tell you how to mute or gate it. It is a classic entry on the common failures list.