As a visual and audible medium, television can be disabling in different ways for people with a variety of impairments.
For example, the visual nature of television can be problematic for people with vision impairments, while other people may not be able to hear the sound due to a hearing impairment. These issues impact users of VOD today, just as they did when television was first introduced.
A number of accessibility features exist to translate information in different ways.
Captions are currently the most well-known accessibility feature for video, having gained a widespread mainstream audience online and in education. However, audio description and spoken subtitles are also being used more often in recent years as awareness spreads of their benefits.
The image below outlines key accessibility features for video and their function (alt text available).
![Accessibility features: Key terms and definitions of features that enhance access to video and other visual media. Audio description (AD) provides a track of audio narration which describes important visual elements of a television show, movie or performance. Closed captions [cc] present the audio component of audiovisual content as text on screen. Lip reading avatars provide an animated talking face for lip readers. Signing avatars provide animated hands providing sign language interpretation. Spoken subtitles: A reading aloud of interlingual subtitles. Can be generated as a separate audio track by the broadcaster or created by the receiver using text to speech software. Clean audio: A provision of the speech without any background music or other sounds. Reference: Katie Ellis, Mike Kent, Kathryn Locke and Melissa Merchant (2016). “Accessing subscription video on demand: A study of disability and streaming television in Australia.” Australian Communications Consumer Action Network: https://accan.org.au/files/Grants/VOD%20tip%20sheets/VOD%20Accessibility_report.docx](https://www.accessible-video-on-demand.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Accessibility-features1.png)