What is accessibility?
If you've ever used the space bar to pause or play a video online, you used an accessibility feature. Accessibility provides an inclusive experience for people of all abilities to consume the same content.
Accessibility standards address a wide range of needs, including physical impairments, difficulty with fine motor skills, colorblindness, low or limited vision, and cognitive impairments. Users should not be limited in their ability to view content, and accessibility work aims to improve the web experience for all.
How do we make our player accessible?
Our player complies with WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards. We'll outline our accessibility features below.
Accessibility checklist
When customizing a Wistia video, you'll see an "Accessibility checklist" tab in the sidebar.
Screen Reader Legible: Wistia is compatible with screen readers such as VoiceOver (Apple), TalkBack (Android), and JAWS (Windows).
Keyboard Compatible: The player is fully functional with the keyboard alone and built to support various assistive technologies on both desktop and mobile.
High Contrast Player Color: The player color is accessible by default, and we offer an accessible color chooser via the Customize menu. Learn more about the minimum WCAG contrast requirements here.
Thumbnail Alt Text: A description of the thumbnail can be added via the Customize panel.
Visible Player Controls: Player controls such as the play button, volume, settings, and captions are persistent in the play bar.
Captions and Transcripts: We integrate with a third-party service to generate automated captions and ensure transcriptions across your entire account.
Audio Descriptions: Audio Descriptions are alternate audio tracks that narrate important video content that blind or low-vision viewers would otherwise be unable to access. You can read more about Audio Descriptions here.
Accessible play bar
The Wistia play bar is designed to be simple and easy to navigate, with transparent color options that ensure an accessible contrast ratio. Additionally, the video duration is persistently displayed in the bottom left corner of the play bar.
Multiple player languages
We offer multiple player languages based on viewer language selection. Review our Transcripts and Captions overview to learn more.
An accessible mobile player
In addition to an accessible desktop player, Wistia has an accessible mobile player. Here’s what makes our mobile player easy for anyone to use:
High-contrast play bar
Skip ahead and back by 10 seconds
Large mobile controls
Ellipses show and hide controls once the play bar has reached 60% (easier to see content vs play bar as needed)
Stacking/vertical animation to show you where the controls appear once you interact with the player
Suppressed player branding on mobile to maximize space for content and player controls
Default player color is a deep, high-contrast blue
Tip
Check out our blog post for more insights: Video Accessibility: How to Make Your Video Content Accessible