How to Make Digital Assets Accessible: Audio Files

Making Audio and Video Media Accessible (W3C): The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative site for audio/video content. The site contains guidance for planning audio, creating captions, and creating transcripts.

UDL on Campus: Audio: This page describes how audio content aligns with the UDL framework, provides an instructor example, and lists examples of student-created audio assignments.

This is an overview of the elements that require special consideration when using audio only content. Please review one of the Additional Resources for detailed instructions.

• Provide a transcript for spoken content and music with lyrics. 
• When creating audio, record using a microphone and in a room with minimal background noise. (We recommend CAT's Sound Booth for on-campus recordings.)
• Mix your audio tracks so the main speaker tracks are 20 decibels higher than background tracks (e.g. music, soundscape, etc.)

Optimizing Audio for Learning*

• Audio should be of high quality sound and allow for volume adjustment, playback speed variation, and pausing. When recording audio, ensure a moderate, consistent pace and include pauses that make the audio more understandable.
• Audio clips should be relatively short in duration or divided into short chapters or sections.
• Provide alternate ways to convey audio content, such as offering a transcript, image or graphic with description.
• If the goal of instruction is music-related, provide alternatives through tactile and/or visual means if possible. You may also consider adding access to the musical notation or sheet music as an alternative.
• If providing a download link for the audio file, make sure it is in a format that is compatible across devices (e.g. MP3 or MP4).
• When appropriate, provide background information for audio clips to help students understand their significance and situate audio clips in a meaningful context.

*Optimizing Audio for Learning from UDL On Campus by CAST is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License