Re: Using videos in the help

[Willie Walker <walker willie gmail com>]

Hi Milo:

> Unfortunately, not.
> It is based on the HTML5 video tag, and it doesn't really support
> captioning (yet?). I know that Mozilla has some proposal for it, but
> nothing real (if there is something already working, I would really
> like to take a look at it).

http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/video.html does indeed state the following:

"In particular, this content is not fallback  content intended to 
address accessibility concerns. To make  video content accessible to 
the blind, deaf, and those with other  physical or cognitive 
disabilities, authors are expected to provide alternative media streams 
and/or to embed accessibility aids (such  as caption or subtitle 
tracks) into their media streams."

Like you, however, I recall Mozilla working on a proposal to improve 
this situation.  I'm CC'ing David Bolter on this e-mail -- he's with 
Mozilla and can hopefully tell us more about the Mozilla proposal.

> Willie, do you think the absence of CC or subtitles is a real blocker
> to the introduction of small video in the help?

With my accessibility hat on - all developers need to design for 
accessibility.  Just as i18n is a consideration you make every day, you 
need to do the same for a11y.  Planning to retrofit it in as an 
afterthought results in one of two things: 1) it never gets done or 2) 
it tends to be more costly than if you did it right from the beginning. 
 And, by all means, documentation is one of the most crucial aspects to 
learning.  By creating inaccessible documentation, you immediately 
create a barrier to entry.

Will