You don’t need transcripts for YouTube videos, but if your video’s audio also functions as a podcast (e.g., it’s available to listen to on Apple Podcasts or Spotify), then you do need a transcript.
If you need a place to post and organize your transcripts, try our transcript hosting service, TranscriptHost.com. It’s designed for accessibility and marketability so that you can just link to your transcript from your media.
And, by the way, a text transcript for a video is always nice to have – it’s like an accessibility bonus, increases findability, and AI makes this so much easier now.
Anyway, here’s the full breakdown on video accessibility for YouTube.
For YouTube accessibility, let’s look at the applicable technical requirements for conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG):
- Success Criterion 1.2.1 (Level A): For videos with no audio, you need to provide either a text description or an audio track that explains what’s happening visually
- Success Criterion 1.2.2 (Level A): For regular videos with audio, you need to provide captions that show the dialogue and important sounds
- Success Criterion 1.2.3 (Level A): For regular videos, you need to provide either a text description or audio description of important visual content
- Success Criterion 1.2.5 (Level AA): For videos, you need to provide audio description – this means adding narration that describes important visual details during pauses in dialogue
- Success Criterion 1.2.8 (Level AAA): For all videos, you need to provide a complete text transcript that includes all dialogue and descriptions of visual content
For those of you keep score at home, note that 1.2.5 effectively means you must satisfy 1.2.3 using audio descriptions rather than text alternatives. Of course, you can always provide both a text transcript and audio descriptions for maximum accessibility.
Also, since AAA conformance is seldomly required, we don’t have to have a text transcript for all videos.
When Transcripts Are Required
For WCAG conformance, transcripts are required in these scenarios:
- Audio-only content (like podcasts): Transcripts are required at Level A
- Video-only content (no audio): Either descriptive transcripts or audio descriptions are required at Level A
And, as we just said, because 1.2.5 requires audio descriptions, the default choice for video-only content with no audio is to have an audio description.
So to summarize, for WCAG 2.1 AA (or another version) conformance, you don’t need text transcripts for YouTube videos.
Implementing Transcripts on YouTube
Since YouTube doesn’t have a built-in transcript feature, you’ll need to:
- Create your transcript separately
- Include it in your video description (probably not because of the character limits)
- Or link to it from a page hosting your transcript (like TranscriptHost.com)
For longer videos, consider using timestamps in the transcript to help users navigate to specific sections.
Benefits of Video Transcripts
While transcripts aren’t required at Level AA for standard YouTube videos, they offer significant advantages:
- Accessibility beyond WCAG. Not a technical requirement, but very nice to have
- Reach to deaf-blind users who rely on refreshable Braille displays
- SEO potential because now your content is in text form
- UX for people who prefer reading/scanning to watching/fast forwarding
- Repurpose for blogs and descriptions now that you have the extra text
Summary
There’s nothing in the WCAG technical standards (for conformance level AA) that effectively requires a text transcript for YouTube videos, but there are so many marketing and accessibility benefits, it makes a lot of sense to add a transcript because of the added accessibility and marketing benefits.
Plus, AI like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude make accessibility and creating transcripts so much easier now. So while your working on closed captions and audio descriptions, transcripts are a great throw in.
And with our TranscriptHost.com service, you now have a dedicated place to put the transcript.
