![]() ![]() When we want to indicate any subtle changes in the background, emphasis on specific words, whispering, or a short pause, we can rely on simple text formatting rules in subtitles to communicate it. Subtitles Formatting and Design Conventionsįortunately, there are already golden rules of transcription, best practices as well as an established visual language for closed captions and subtitles. Our journey starts with a general conversation about design conventions for subtitles. In this article, we focus both on subtitles and captions, with some general guidelines of how we can improve both. They often lack speaker IDs and sound descriptions and consequently, subtitles aren’t necessarily accessible. While captions are designed for people with hearing difficulties, subtitles are designed to support hearing people who might not understand the original language. Subtitles, on another hand, are considered as part of internationalization (not accessibility) and designed as a translation from one spoken language to another written language for hearing people who don't understand the original language. ![]() However, as kindly pointed out by Svetlana Kouznetsova in her book an audio accessibility, they aren’t really interchangeable.Īccordion to Svetlana, Captions are considered as part of accessibility and designed for deaf people to access aural information in the same language with accessibility elements such as speaker identifications, sound descriptions etc. In the end, it’s all about conveying information in a textual way. CaptionsĪt the first glance, subtitles and captions might appear to be the same. It’s also a part of Smart Interface Design Patterns □ and is available in the live UX training as well. Pssst! This article is part of our ongoing series on design patterns. But first, we need to talk about how subtitles and captions are different. With captions, we can embed a lot of contextual details that are somehow lost between the lines when translated from audio to text - be it sarcasm, music information, synthetic voice, background noise, or unexpected interruptions. Isn’t it basically just text flowing over lines, with a few time stamps in between? And it doesn’t seem like a particularly complicated task. Yet, today it’s almost unimaginable to have a public video produced without proper captioning in place. Just a decade ago, closed captioning would be difficult to come by on the web. The Doctor asks her phone “Tell me about the Visual Language of Closed Captions and Subtitles.” (Source: ) ( Large preview) In short, closed captions are better for everybody and they increase ROI and audience. Perhaps the spoken language isn’t their native language, or perhaps they aren’t quite familiar with the accent of some speakers, or maybe they don’t have headphones nearby, don’t want to use them, or can’t use them. Many people turn on closed captioning by default these days to comfortably follow along in the video. In fact, the environment might not matter that much. ![]() Subtitles available in 13 languages on TED. ![]() That way, however, is the only way for some of us who are hard of hearing - temporarily or permanently - nevermind of how noisy or busy the environment is. This is, of course, useful for video streaming like Netflix or Hulu, but also for games, video courses, social media content, and real-time communication on Zoom, Google Meet, and so on with automated captioning turned on. There, consuming content via audio is difficult, and so captions help communicate information in an alternative, textual way. When we think about closed captioning, we often think about noisy environments, be it busy restaurants, shopping malls, or airport lounges. Design patterns for better UX of subtitles, captions, video players, transcripts and on-screen text. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |