This document summarizes the state of content accessibility in 2021 based on surveys conducted by Level Access, 3Play Media, and others. Some key findings include: - 65% of respondents expect increased needs for captioning in 2021 due to COVID-19 driving more online video usage. - 87% of organizations now caption some or all of their video content, up from 83% in 2020. - PDFs, Microsoft Word, and PowerPoint are the most commonly used electronic document types. - 78% of organizations tag PDFs to ensure accessibility, and alternative text usage for images on social media is on the rise. - Accessible interactive content and proper semantic markup in content management systems are areas that need

1. State of Content
Accessibility in
2021
E Foley, Level Access
Kelly Mahoney, 3Play Media
Sofia Leiva, 3Play Media

2. On the
Agenda
Video and accessibility
snapshots
Major captioning trends in
2021
Video accessibility tips for
social media, live video, and
recorded videos
Major web accessibility
trends in 2021
Content accessibility tips for
websites, blog posts, social
media, and digital documents.

3. ACCESSIBILITY
A11Y

4. ACCESSIBILITY
SNAPSHOT
of users with disabilities
leave a website
immediately if it’s not
accessible
(Level Access)
$490
BILLION
71% 80%
of people who use
captions are not deaf or
hard of hearing
(Ofcom UK)
after-tax disposable
income of working age
people with disabilities
(American Institutes for
Research)

5. ONLINE
VIDEO
global increase in video
consumption after COVID-19
(Nielsen)
of consumers say the pandemic
made video more valuable to
their brand
of consumers say COVID-19
influenced their captioning
needs in 2020
SNAPSHOT
60%
60%
91%

6. What is the State
of Digital A11y?
Annual survey by Level Access, G3ict,
and IAAP that tracks the progression of
digital accessibility practices from year
to year. 2021 is its third year.
Tracks current trends in a11y
across many industries.
Helps paint a picture of the what, why, &
how for creating accessible content.

7. About
Accessibility
Programs
Drivers for Accessibility
Accessibility Goals
Accessibility Challenges

8. Drivers - Why is a11y
important to your org?

9. This has grown from 65% in 2019, suggesting
that awareness about the value of inclusive
design is growing slowly but steadily.
78% of organizations said that
including people with
disabilities was a major driver. 62% of
organizations
said that providing the
best UX for all users
was a major driver.
61% of organizations
said that complying with laws was a
major reason why they are accessible.

10. But what about YOU?
What are your drivers?

11. Individuals are far more concerned with
inclusivity (93%) and user experience (82%) than
their organizations.
93% of individuals said that
including people with
disabilities was a major driver. 82% of people
said that providing the
best UX for all users
was a major driver.
Only 38% of people
said that complying with laws was a major
reason why they work to be accessible.

12. Accessibility Program
Goals for 2021

13. 65% of respondents chose improving usability for people with
disabilities as a goal for 2021. The next most popular goal was
implementing a standard, organization-wide approach to
accessibility with 52%.
43% of
organizations
chose maturing an
accessibility program.
Achieving
conformance for
systems & programs
rounded out the top
5.

14. 1. Time (66%)
2. Training (53%)
3. Incorporating a11y
earlier in the
development
lifecycle (53%)
4. Access to usability
testers who have
disabilities (47%)
5. Budget (45%)
Top 5
Challenges
for
Accessibility
Programs

15. What is the State
of Captioning?
Annual survey that tracks progression
of video accessibility practices from
year to year.
Tracks current trends in
captioning across many
industries.
Helps paint a picture of the what, why,
and how for captioning online videos.

16. Video
Accessibility
Topics
Captioning Behaviors & Perspectives
Automatic Captioning
Live Captioning
Social Media Captioning
Barriers & Drivers for Captioning

17. General Video &
Captioning Habits

18. This has grown from 83% in 2020, suggesting
that captioning priorities are strengthening
slowly but steadily.
87% of respondents
caption all, most, or some
of their video content. 50% of
organizations
Have a clear
captioning policy,
compared to 42% in
2020.
51% of organizations
Have centralized captioning,
compared to 37% in 2020.

19. Social Media
Captioning Habits

20. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are the most popular platforms
for publishing captioned videos.
43% of
organizations
Caption all social
media content,
compared to 35% in
2020.
#1 reason for
captioning on
social media is
for accessibility.

21. 60% of organizations
Use live captions for live
streaming video content.
49% of organizations
Live stream up to 1,000 hours
of video.
Live Captioning &
Live Streaming
Habits

22. The State of Automatic
Captions

23. Without diligent quality control, auto-captions
can range anywhere from 50-90% accuracy
depending on certain factors like sound quality,
word pronunciation, multiple speakers, etc.
How accessible are
automatic captions?
37% of
organizations
Indicated they are
using automatic
captions.
Educational and social
media content
The type of content that is mostly used with auto
captions.

24. Captioning Outlook

25. 56% of organizations
Caption for accessibility.
What drives
organizations to
caption?

26. What are the
Top Barriers to
Captioning?
Cost and budget are consistently
top barriers to captioning.
However, captioning budgets are growing
to match increased demand.

27. 65% of
organizations
Expect captioning
needs to increase in
2021.
COVID did
increase the need
for captioning.
How are captioning needs
changing?

28. Key
Takeaways
65% of people see their needs for
captioning increasing in 2021.
Captioning priorities have
grown over the past year.
41% of people say they
already caption everything.
Live captioning will
become more essential.
Live streaming is growing in
popularity.

29. Tips for
Budgeting
for
Accessibility
Create a captioning grant
Find other line items for captioning
Put leftover funds to good use

30. Content Creation and
Accessibility in 2021

31. Content
Accessibility
Topics
Content creation a11y checks (or not)
Most popular electronic documents
PDFs and other documents
Social media content
A11y of content management platforms

32. 62% of organizations are verifying content
accessibility before a new asset is published.
23% of organizations report no checks are
done before a new asset is published.
How accessible is web
content?
Over 41% of
participants stated
they had accessibility
challenges caused by “too
many content creators.”
Without proper training—which 53% of
participants identified as a challenge—it
is difficult to ensure that all published
content is accessible.

33. PDFs & Other Electronic
Documents

34. 1. PDF - 95%
2. MS Word - 86%
3. MS PowerPoint -75%
4. MS Excel -63%
5. Google Docs -37%
Top 5 Most
Popular
Electronic
Document
Types
Check off the electronic
document types you
frequently produce:

35. 78% of organizations report tagging PDFs
to ensure accessibility by those who use
assistive technology like screen reading
software.
PDF Accessibility

36. Social Media
Content &
Accessibility
52% reported that Facebook was
the platform their organization
used the most often.
66% reported that accessibility features did
not influence their organization’s decisions on
where to publish content on social media.

37. 76% of
organizations
reported using alt text
when posting images
on social media.
2019 - 29%
2020 - 45%
Alternative text for images on
social media is on the rise!

38. Other #a11y
best
practices for
social media
(and their
adoption
rates)
Providing the same content on different social
media networks (50%)
WCAG-compliant color contrast for images
that include text (44%)
CamelCase hashtags (42%)
Providing the same content in different
formats (22%)
Noting media type for a URL (15%)
Audio description for video (12%)

39. A11y vs. Content
Management Platforms

40. with 35% of content creators using it regularly. The
survey asked content creators to rate the
accessibility features in the most accessible
platform they use.
WordPress was the most
popular web CMS Adding alternative
text and image
captions to make
visual content
accessible were the
easiest tasks to
perform on content
management
systems.
A11y can be streamlined by making
design components (like Gutenberg
blocks in WordPress) accessible. Then
content creators can drag & drop!

41. Nearly a third of content
creators reported that it
was difficult or impossible
to create accessible
interactive elements* in
their content
management system.
* Interactive
elements:
quizzes, calculators,
interactive graphs &
charts, etc.
Content creators report that using proper semantic markup
in their CMS is a bit more challenging.
Only 43% reported it as easy to do.

42. Key
Takeaways
78% of organizations are using
alt text on social media images.
Inclusion is growing as a driver
and a value in organizations.
78% of organizations say they
are tagging PDFs for a11y.
Download a copy at
LevelAccess.com/SODAR2021.
Accessible interactive
content is an area that
needs some great minds!

43. Thank you!
Got questions?
E Foley, Level Access
Kelly Mahoney, 3Play Media
Sofia Leiva, 3Play Media