Captions
Also known as: Closed captions, subtitles
Captions are the synchronised text of everything spoken (and important sounds) in a video, so people who are deaf or hard of hearing can follow it.
In plain terms
Good captions include who's speaking and meaningful sounds — "[applause]", "[phone rings]" — not just the dialogue. Auto-generated captions are a starting point, but they mangle names, jargon and punctuation, so they need a human check before you rely on them.
Why it matters
Captions are required by WCAG 1.2.2, and they help far more than deaf users: anyone watching in a noisy office, a quiet train, or a second language. They also make your video content searchable.
A product demo with human-reviewed captions that read "The API returns JSON" instead of the auto-caption's "the A P I returns Jason".
Related terms
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