How to Use the New Caption Editor in Studio? (+Video)

[AkosFarago]

Video cutting in Studio is on fire. We are now over 20,000 cut videos since October which clearly indicates how much needed it was in your everyday Studio usage. As part of our content creation plans, we’ve long been aware that fixing errors in auto-generated captions is a regular activity that supports learning content to be accessible. From today, you will get to fix these errors in significantly less time than before. No more scrollin’ up and down in the editor, we added real-time updates and the editor is equipped with caption creation capability which will eventually reduce tools that you might have used besides Studio on a daily basis.

Furthermore, we improved our media player for students so that they can personalize their experience when watching learning videos. From an accessibility standpoint, captions can be enlarged and their colours can be inverted when better readability is required. On top of these, Studio now supports captions to be positioned on the bottom of the screen - something that we owe our teachers and students for a long time.

The following Studio embedded media will not only give you a quick walkthrough of these changes, but you get to also try out the personalisation first-hand! 

(video link)

This doesn't end our endeavours around providing better captioning in Studio. The team is now working with certain professional captioning vendors which provide captions with over 98% accuracy. The goal is for instructors and accessibility personnels to be able to add professional captions to Studio videos with the exact same level of easiness as you can do it with auto-generated ones today. If your institution is already partnering with any of them and you would be happy to get early access to see the benefit of the integration then feel free to drop me a message her. I'll reach out to you with some info and questions.

Best,

Akos

[ProfessorBeyrer]

Boom! The find-and-replace option is my favorite new feature. I'm sure my students will appreciate the ability to customize the appearance and location too. 

Thank you, Studio development team!

[traciebosket]

That is fantastic! Way to go Studio!

Do we also have the option to customize the location, size, and colors on captions for separate videos? Some videos need bottom captions, some others need top captions depending on how the content is displayed.

[AkosFarago]

Thank you!

@traciebosket the caption appearance is controlled on the viewer's end, which means they are free to change it anyhow they want in a video. If the content is displayed in a way that captions should be positioned on the top, then the viewers can make that switch easily.  

[audra_agnelly]

@AkosFarago Is there a link or an embed code to your video that I can use in my staff update?

[AkosFarago]

@audra_agnelly sure, I added it to the original post under the video!

[stephentomasovi]

I love the Find & Replace feature's way it filters the lines of text to only show those lines which contain the word or phrase.  That's a game-changer for me.  I like the case-sensitive capability, too.  The Insert Line is also a great tool to have, and I can see myself using it.

Users would benefit from being able to edit the text where the text is located in the transcript itself rather than having the text editor open on the opposite side of the screen.  This minor issue could add substantial time to the editing process.  This may seem like a small thing, but the back-and-forth and back-and-forth will add up.  I've done several hundred hours (maybe in the thousands now) of CC, and I can see that getting to me.

Also, users would benefit from having the ability to move the text editor & transcript around where the user prefers.  I like to have my text on the right side of the video as it's playing.  Some users may prefer it on the top or bottom of the video.

[mjones14]

Hi Akos! Thank you for the post and video. I have a question about the new +Insert Line function. The release notes say “The Insert Line function allows users to extend the existing caption with new blocks. This functionality allows instructors to easily confirm captions are meeting accessibility standards.” May I ask what "accessibility standards" this functionality meets? In your video, you mention that you can use this function to add additional text to the existing captions if it was omitted, but I am wondering if this function would typically be used to add a second line of characters so that the original line does not contain too many (since there is a maximum number of characters per line; usually 30+)? Thanks in advance for your help!

[AkosFarago]

@mjones14, thank you for the question, hope I understand it correctly.

The second line of characters (or enabling multiple caption blocks/lines on the same timestamp) had been available even before our improvements, we kept it as more of a technical possibility than a feature that you must use to ensure accessibility. This means we did not invalidate such captions in the past but display lines below each other.

Reason is simple as the following: we could not confirm with 100% that instructors are not using other caption editors (even simple notepad-like applications) that capitalizes on such capability. One example would be where two instructors are presenting something and they might speak at the same time. We all like to be perfectionists sometimes, and with having two caption blocks overlapping in time, you are able to display speaker identification manually:

00:00:07,620 --> 00:00:10,170
[John] It is not something you might know,
[Rachel] Nobody memorizes this,

Therefore new functions in the editor such as the timestamp change, find&replace and insert new lines all contribute to creating more accurate captions and therefore better accessibility.

(Psst, sneak-peek: the accessibility examples you brought e.g. maximum number of characters per line will in the future be incorporated as an automatic checker in the editor, similarly to the accessibility checker in the RCE.)

Best,

Akos

[sdierk]

Beautiful! So many great updates. Many thanks to the team for the amazing work.

[mjones14]

Thank you for responding to my questions, Akos! I have a couple of follow-up questions:

1. I appreciate the multiple speaker example you shared (for using the Insert Line feature). Are there any additional examples you can share in terms of needing to use the Insert Line feature?

2. Thank you for the sneak peek! I look forward to the automatic checker feature. Any idea what number it will check for in terms of the max characters per line?

Thanks!

[AkosFarago]

@sdierk thank you, I'll forward the kind words to the team!

@mjones14:

1. Nothing else from an accessibility standpoint based on the caption editor's current feature set. Although, some schools I talked with in the past want to create captions from scratch as mentioned in the video, so the insert line is providing solution for them. 

2. There are a few things we studied recently and I can share three of them. Most probably, these will indicate a warning rather than disallowing the person creating captions to publish them:

• character/second - the average reading speed is 250 words per minute and considering that on average an English word’s length is cca. 6 characters, we recommend not using more than 24 characters/seconds. The checker will confirm if this is violated or not.
• excessive usage of capital letters - text with all (or a lot) of capital letters can be hard to read for most people, not just those with some visual impairment. We recommend using all-capital lettering only for abbreviations, acronyms, or 1-2 words/caption blocks that must be emphasized in a way.
• overlapping in time - even though there are use cases as mentioned before (speaker ids), the editor will indicate if this occurs just in case it is unintended.

Hope this helps! I love the questions!

Akos

[mjones14]

@AkosFarago : Thank you so much for your response. This helps and I look forward to these upcoming additions!🙂

[traciebosket]

@AkosFarago Thanks Akos!

[JohnDeSousa]

@AkosFarago 

Thank you for all these updates! Unfortunately I feel like there is one major slow down in the new captioning workflow. I've never had to click save each time I've edited a line. This adds a lot of clicks through the workflow. I used to be able to make all of my changes and click save once at the end.

I would eventually want to see the video continue to play while I make my edits, because sometimes it is as simple as adding a period or changing a capital letter, only pausing it for larger edits. Instead, this workflow significantly slows down the process.

That being said, I'm in love with all of the other updates as they were much needed. I hope this issue can be addressed to make this editor a more usable option.

[mjones14]

Hello again, @AkosFarago ! I second @JohnDeSousa 's feedback above. When researching this new feature, we came across the following post in the Studio Captions forum (marked as solved by the Community Coach) and wanted to make sure you saw it as well: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Question-Forum/Studio-Captions/m-p/558948

Thanks!

[AkosFarago]

@mjones14 , @JohnDeSousa 

Thank you for the very valuable feedback!

I agree with you that in some cases, this can slow down the speed of fixing errors so we will consider to iterate on our solution with the in-line editing capability in the future.

[costwink]

@mjones14, @JohnDeSousa, @AkosFarago 

I absolutely want to echo the comments that the 'save' button now slows down the editing/proofing process.  I have student workers who proof and correct automatic captions for faculty and some videos need more editing/correcting than others.  This saving per line - vs. the auto-saving that existed previously - will slow things down and I'm fearful that errors will result when the save button is forgotten and movement occurs to the next row/caption.  Perhaps a pop-up message could be added when such movement occurs if the auto-saving can't be returned (our first preference, if possible).

Thanks for these updates overall.

[dtod]

Here's a tampermonkey script that fixes this. Lightly tested.

// ==UserScript==
// @Name         blur save for studio captions
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      0.11
// @description  Auto-save studio captions when clicking elsewhere
// @author       You
// @match        https://*.instructuremedia.com/*
// @icon         data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

function blurSaveForCaptions(){
    if (document.querySelector('.CaptionEditorContainer__form textarea') != null){
        // console.log('test 2');
        document.querySelector('.CaptionEditorContainer__form textarea').addEventListener("focus",function() {
            addBlurAndPlay();
        })
    }
}

function addBlurAndPlay(){
    document.querySelector('.CaptionEditorContainer__form textarea').addEventListener("blur",function() {

        // save when focus is lost on the text area
        document.querySelector('.CaptionEditorContainer__form span:nth-child(3) button').click();

        // start playing again
        document.querySelectorAll('[data-test=PlayerButton-Play]')[0].click();

    });
    // start playing when the text area gets focus
    document.querySelectorAll('[data-test=PlayerButton-Play]')[0].click();
}

(function() {
    'use strict';
    // console.log('test');
   	var observer = new MutationObserver(blurSaveForCaptions);

	// because the SPA framework (Raven - SPA's are utterly stupid) has the whole dom in memory, document is the only option
	observer.observe(document, {subtree: true, childList: true});

})();

[SybilMorgan]

The caption editor change is HORRIBLE (not talking about the find/replace feature)!! I like the side-by-side panes, but having to click Save every time I change anything in a caption (like fixing punctuation) makes this process slow and cumbersome. It is a waste of time. Also, on my laptop, the Save button is below the fold, so I will forget to scroll down and save it the first few times, losing my work and wasting more time.

It would be more functional if there were the side-by-side panes with the editing function that used to be there (click on the caption, type the change, and it would auto-save).

This is not helping me make my content accessible "in significantly less time than before" as you state in your video. It is taking me longer. Please respect our time and put auto-save back in the caption editing feature. 

[AkosFarago]

@mjones14 , @JohnDeSousa, @costwink , @dtod , @SybilMorgan 

What do you think about the following proposal?

Current behaviour: you need to click on Save each time you want to apply a change.

Proposed solution: no Cancel or Save, as when you click away from the input text - either outside the input textbox on the page or opening a new caption line to edit from the left hand side or even leaves the page (see next comment from @costwink ) - it autosaves the changes. (Very similar to what @dtod is proposing, but wanted to help you visualize it)

Final solution might be slightly different, but that's how we would get back the speed of editing.

Thank you for you feedback,

Akos

[costwink]

@AkosFarago   this is certainly an improvement.  Can the page be set-up so that when one leaves it - it also saves?  I'm suggesting this last piece so that someone doesn't edit the last line and leave without first clicking somewhere else (earlier in the captions) to save that last work.  Whenever one leaves the page - it should automatically save or at least prompt one to save all edits.

[SybilMorgan]

@AkosFarago  Yes! Having the autosave feature would be fantastic. I do like the side-by-side presentation as it is similar to other video editors and you can see/pause the video without needing to scroll.

Thank you for hearing our feedback!

One more question: how does Studio choose the thumbnail and will there be changes to this allowing creators to select a thumbnail from anywhere in the video? It seems like my eyes are closed or my mouth is gaping like a fish or if it is content, it is from halfway through the video.

[JohnDeSousa]

@AkosFarago 

Thank you so much for addressing our concerns, I think this change would go a long way in the usability of the tool for power users. I'm currently recording a tutorial video for our faculty, and without holding you to any time commitment, when would this roll out? Should I hold off on recording or will this be a ways down the road.

Thanks again!
-John

[AkosFarago]

@costwink - sure, anywhere clicking away will save changes automatically, thank you!

@SybilMorgan - that's on our radar but cannot give you any estimate at this point. In the meantime, you can replace the thumbnail with creating a screenshot in the video then adding it to the media. We will make this process so much easier!

@JohnDeSousa - we'll have an estimation from the engineers tomorrow, but this on the top of our backlog now and therefore it should be out in a few weeks.

[audra_agnelly]

@AkosFarago , just checking: caption edits will autosave whenever the user changes focus to a different element on the page? So, users using Tab or other keyboard shortcuts to navigate don't need to physically "click" somewhere for their edits to save, correct?

[AkosFarago]

@audra_agnelly 

Correct, any kind of focus change will trigger the autosave.

[SybilMorgan]

@AkosFarago  Two more things.

1. I was working on captions today and I was thinking that being able to edit on the left side,  instead of needing to click on the caption on the left and edit on the right (the editing line was below the fold on my laptop) was taking a while. If the editing stays on the right, could you make the right pane smaller somehow to keep the editing line visible on most screens? I don't have this issue on a monitor (laptop display is 1366x768 and monitor is 1920x1080 and browser zoom is at 100%).

2. While working on the captions, I realized there was part that needed to be cut out of video. I went and edited it and came back to find my captions were gone! 😭 That was about 40 minutes of work I lost. Other editors allow you to edit and caption in the same place, so I don't lose my work like I did here.

[AkosFarago]

@SybilMorgan 

1. Yes, that is a very good point and we also noticed it recently. The above illustration is just to give a hint about the upcoming change, we will most probably swap the caption text and timestamp, because the text requires fixing way more often. 

2. This will be fixed in April! It is a known limitation, but we are almost ready with a solution where video editing will cut the captions automatically as well.

[AkosFarago]

@audra_agnelly , @JohnDeSousa , @costwink , @dtod , @mjones14 , @SybilMorgan 

The auto-save is now back, please see the release notes. Let me know if you have any feedback! 

Thanks,

Akos

[mjones14]

@AkosFarago Thank you for letting us know! We are testing this out shortly.

[mjones14]

@AkosFarago Thank you for making this update! One suggestion: Would it be possible to add some sort of visual confirmation that indicates that the update has autosaved? I'm thinking of something similar to Word's autosave feature. Let me know what you think.

[AkosFarago]

@mjones14 We have that in the top right corner!

[mjones14]

@AkosFarago Thank you for pointing that out. I see it now.