by deaf user
Posted on November 26, 2009 at 10:44 am

“The real challenge concerning online video is creating video content that is both effective and high quality. Online video is a perfectly targeted communication medium. Online video is perfect for information-intensive messages.”

From online accessibility, actually the real challenge is to make it accessible to millions of users with hearing loss and millions more who have no audio access for other reasons such as restrictive software/hardware and environments (broken speakers, noisy environments, mobile phones, etc) as well as for foreign speakers who find it easier to read text than listen to audio.

Currently, it is assumed that videos are a “must” while text versions are an “option” which gives much less accessibility to users than the other way around. Actually, text versions is a requirement by the law while audio component is just an option.

It is the text version that is “perfect for information-intensive messages”, not video. Actually, Google cannot “hear” videos and cannot index them. It is the text version that significantly improves websites’ SEO. That’s something to think about.

by deaf user
Posted on November 26, 2009 at 1:15 pm

P.S. There are statistics to show why text is more important than audio:

CNET – Reported 30% increase in CNET traffic from Google after they started providing transcripts. “We saw a significant increase in SEO referrals when we launched an HTML version of our site, the major component of which was our transcripts.” – Justin Eckhouse, CNET, 2009

ReelSEO and Plymedia:
Online Video Subtitling Increase Video Viewing by 40%
http://www.reelseo.com/subtitles-viewing/