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.

Does youtube tv have closed captioning