Media Alternative (Prerecorded)

What it asks

A media alternative is a single text document that captures everything in the video — both audio and visual tracks — in a form readable independently of the media. It serves Deaf-blind users who rely on braille displays, users on slow connections who can’t stream video, and anyone who wants to search or skim the content. It is more comprehensive than a captions transcript and more polished than raw description notes.

How to meet it

• Write a narrative document that interleaves dialogue, speaker identification, and visual descriptions in reading order.
• Include all on-screen text — slide content, lower thirds, captions on charts.
• Use real headings and lists so screen-reader users can navigate the document.
• Link the alternative prominently from the same page as the video, not in a footer or PDF download buried elsewhere.
• For training and educational content, the media alternative often doubles as the official course transcript.
• Make the alternative findable in search — index it like any other page content.

Common failures

• Calling the captions .vtt file a “media alternative” — it has no visual descriptions, no speaker labels in narrative form, and no structure.
• A media alternative produced as a PDF with no headings, no alt text on embedded images, and no link from the video page.
• Skipping the on-screen text — slide content visible in the video but missing from the document.
• The alternative covers the keynote and skips the demo, leaving the most information-dense part out.

Why it matters

AAA, and almost never contractually required, but worth producing for legal-compliance training, regulatory disclosures, and any video whose information is non-negotiable. For Deaf-blind users it is the only access path; for everyone else it’s a searchable archive of the content.