Assume your video will be watched without sound. Caption anything with speech, put the main point on screen in the first seconds, and never let a video start with sound by itself.

What changed on iPhones yesterday

Apple released iOS 10 yesterday, with a new version of Safari for iPhones.

Until now, a video on a web page would not start by itself on an iPhone, and tapping play took it full screen.

Now a video with its sound muted can start on its own and play inside the page, as it does on a computer, when the page is coded for it.

Sites that showed phones a still picture or an animated GIF can show the video itself, so a lot more video is about to be watched in silence.

Facebook already plays News Feed videos without sound as people scroll past.

Who is watching without sound

The last is the group iOS 10 adds to. Someone who never pressed play has not decided to watch anything, and the first silent seconds decide whether they will.

A video that only works with sound

Most small business videos are someone talking: the owner explaining a service, a staff member showing a product, a customer describing a job.

With the sound off, that becomes a person moving their lips. The information was in the voice.

Music-only clips survive better, since nothing was being said.

The test takes as long as the video. Watch it muted and ask whether a stranger would know what it is about, who is speaking and what to do next.

Captions, and the two kinds

Closed captions are a separate file of timed text lines that the player shows over the video, and viewers can turn them on or off.

YouTube and Facebook both accept a caption file uploaded with the video. On your own site, the standard video player takes one too, in a format called WebVTT.

Open captions are part of the picture, added in editing. They show everywhere, including silent previews, but cannot be turned off or corrected without exporting the video again.

Many businesses use both: open text for the opening seconds, closed captions for the whole video.

Automatic captions need a person

YouTube can write captions automatically from the speech. It is a useful start and rarely right on its own.

Names, street names and product terms come out wrong, sometimes in ways that change the meaning or embarrass the business.

Correct them line by line before the video goes public. The corrected file can then be downloaded and reused on Facebook and your own site.

Captions for accessibility should match what is said, not summarise it, and should name an off-screen speaker and any sound that matters.

On-screen text that carries the point

Captions transcribe. On-screen text is written for the silent viewer on purpose.

Put a line in the first two or three seconds saying what the video is: what happens at a first visit, how a repair is done, what is new this week.

Show the facts people act on as text, such as the price, the address and the dates, large enough to read on a phone.

End with what to do next, written out. A spoken "call us today" disappears with the sound.

A worked example

An acupuncture clinic run by two practitioners made a two-minute video for new patients, in which one of them explains what happens at a first appointment.

She covers the health questions, the needles, what most people feel, how long it takes and what to wear. It went on Facebook and at the top of the new patients page.

The front desk kept answering the same calls anyway: what to wear, how long it takes, whether it hurts.

In the feed it played silently: a woman talking in a quiet room, with nothing on screen saying what the video was.

Everything a nervous patient wanted was in the speech, so anyone watching muted got none of it, and neither did a patient who is hard of hearing.

The clinic had YouTube draft captions, corrected every line, and used the file on Facebook and the website.

A title card now opens the video, and the page beneath it lists the same answers as text.

Autoplay that respects the visitor

Being able to autoplay a video does not mean every page should.

If one does start by itself, keep it muted, short and light. Safari on iOS 10 plays it only while it is on screen, but every play still spends the visitor's data.

Give it a pause button. Under WCAG 2.0, the usual reference for accessible websites, anything moving on its own beside other content for over five seconds must be possible to pause.

Never let sound start by itself. It makes people close the tab and talks over the screen readers blind visitors use, which is why WCAG 2.0 requires that automatic sound can be paused or turned down.

And nothing on screen should flash over three times a second, since that can trigger seizures.

A transcript beside the video

A short text version under each video helps more people than captions alone.

Visitors who cannot see the video, or would rather read, get the content in a form their screen reader or their eyes can skim.

Search engines read the words on the page; they do not listen to the video. A tidy transcript gives Google the answers the speaker gave.

The counter-case

Not every video needs all of this. A wordless clip of a finished project or a view needs no captions, only a sentence nearby saying what it shows.

A video that exists for its music or atmosphere loses less in silence than one built on speech.

And a single old video may be better replaced than captioned, if what it says is out of date.

For anything where the words carry the message, caption it, put the point on screen early, and keep sound off until the visitor asks for it.

Before the next video

  1. Watch each video muted from start to finish.
  2. List the ones that make no sense without sound.
  3. Correct the captions line by line.
  4. Upload the caption file everywhere the video appears.
  5. Add a title card in the first seconds.
  6. Turn off autoplay with sound on every page.
  7. Put a short transcript below each video.

Step one is the one that changes minds. A few minutes watching your own video in silence shows what a Facebook scroller, and now an iPhone visitor, sees first.

Where the video file itself should be stored and served from is covered in video files hosted on the same plan as the website.

Frequently asked questions

What changed for video on iPhones?

With iOS 10, released on September 13, a muted video can start by itself and play inside the page in Safari, instead of waiting for a tap and opening full screen.

Who watches video without sound?

Deaf and hard of hearing viewers, people in public or quiet places, Facebook users scrolling the feed, and anyone on a page where video plays by itself.

What is the difference between closed and open captions?

Closed captions are a separate timed text file viewers can switch on or off. Open captions are part of the picture, always visible, and need a new export to correct.

Are automatic captions good enough?

Not on their own. They get names, places and product terms wrong, sometimes embarrassingly. Correct them line by line before publishing, then reuse the corrected file everywhere.

Should videos on my site autoplay?

Only if they are muted, short and light, with a visible pause button. Motion lasting longer than five seconds should come with a way to stop it.

Why add a transcript as well?

It serves people who cannot watch or prefer to read, and it gives search engines the words, since they read the page and do not listen to video.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Videos on your site that rely on sound?

Send us a list of pages with video. We will point out which ones say nothing when muted, and what to add.

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