Canvas Shorts Videos captions not Section 508 compliant

[HennyTasker1]

What the title says. I have trouble with audio processing due to an acquired disability. I need to use the Shorts videos as supplemental material for my "Intro to Canvas" course for faculty members at my institution. It's hard for me to select which videos to use due to the inaccurate captions. Auto-generated captions are not Section 508 compliant.  Please fix this.

Remember: accessibility is not an abstract or "optional" task. It has real-world effects. And you, too, can become disabled at any time.

[Gabriel33]

Do you have an example of a short video with inaccurate captions?

I'm curious about it, as according to their recent post on the short videos, What's Next for Instructure Video Guides?, these videos are made with AI.
I'd guess that its captions would be much better than normal auto-generated captions, since the text is probably created first, and then an AI voice would read it out loud.

[HennyTasker1]

Yeah, all of the shorts videos that I've tried contain inaccurate captions. It's a process issue. If the Canvas LMS team is generating the video with AI, then most likely they're allowing a video editor (probably something like Adobe Premiere Pro) to auto-generate captions based on the audio file associated with the video. Then they are not including a human in that part of their QA/video production process to correct those captions. It's sloppy work. And it makes my job harder to do.

[Gabriel33]

I see, went to watch the video in this guide: How do I edit my profile in my user account? - Instructure Community - 615501, and there are a couple of punctuation issues, such as breaking a sentence in two in the captions, in 0:38 to 0:45 and then again at 0:59.
Is that the type of error you found?

Anyway, you might consider voicing your issues directly in that post I shared, from just last week. It's more likely that a Community Team member will read it there (I don't usually see them posting in this questions forum).

[HennyTasker1]

I found a few more errors than that -- terms seemed to be incorrect in similar videos. I didn't look at the video you mentioned. Thanks for the tip, I posted there.

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hello @HennyTasker1 ,

You also posted this as a reply at https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Question-Forum/Where-to-find-the-video-shorts-in-student-g.... Someone from Canvas has replied back to you about it.

-Doug

[HennyTasker1]

@dbraceHey, I just wanted to flag something for your team's attention regarding the new Canvas Shorts video. Right now, the transcript is being hidden using display: none, which poses an accessibility issue.

Using display: none completely removes the element from the accessibility tree and the visual experience. That might seem fine since you're just hiding text, but in this case, it means the transcript is unavailable to users who rely on visual cues or alternative navigation methods—but who don’t use screen readers.

A lot of people think that all users who need accessible features, like transcripts, are blind or using screen readers. But many screen reader users are also sighted, and plenty of people who benefit from transcripts—like those with cognitive disabilities, non-native speakers, or users in noisy environments—don’t use assistive tech at all.

A better approach would be to keep the transcript in the DOM and available to everyone. Happy to collaborate if needed -- but it should be a relatively easy fix, especially since your old Overview Videos seemed to have this feature.

[dbrace]

Hi @HennyTasker1,

This is not something that I can help with but @KristinL might be able to help direct this to the right team at Instructure.

-Doug

[HennyTasker1]

@dbrace @KristinL Thanks, I appreciate it!

[HennyTasker1]

Quick edit for clarity -- I'm referring to the "Embed Video" function specifically. I haven't checked it out using a screenreader, but I'm assuming that you also use display: none for transcripts in the Guides which contain those Canvas Shorts videos, too.

[KathrynMetz]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are currently exploring options to make transcripts available for our Shorts videos to better support all users.Your feedback highlights an important need, and we are committed to ensuring our materials are accessible and usable by everyone. We appreciate your patience as we work toward a more inclusive experience.