What do you think of when it comes to captions/subtitles? For many people, it's about improving accessibility to those who are deaf or hard of hearing and allow to enjoy the experience of watching videos. It's the right idea, but many people underestimate the power of captions and how much it can benefit the users' experience when they are accessing videos (a blog post and video I've created discussion about those benefits is here: https://hearmeoutcc.com/benefits-subtitles-captions-transcriptions/) Despite the good intentions, captions tend to be, not just ignored or less of a priority, but also created without thinking about how much bad captions can push people away. Using my own personal experience, I am hard of hearing and have been since birth and it is declining. Not only have I been dependent on captions all of my life, but the dependency has increased even more due to the decline of my hearing. With my decades of "experience" of watching good and bad captions, it made me realise that captions are still an after-thought for many people, despite the multiple benefits that it can bring to you. And of course, if there are no captions since that experience has worsened dramatically, and a good example is when I'm at the cinema and watching superhero movies (yet people still say that I should lip-read...but you try lipreading Spiderman and Iron Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhtqMwm0Zy4) I realised more and more that many people are also following bad practices when it comes to captions. For example, they depend on the auto-captions on YouTube, which can bring a terrible experience to all users. And there are others who are not choosing the right words when captioning. For example, when there is a generic [rumble] sound on the video, that could be anything from a train rumbling nearby to your hungry tummy rumbling. But if it's just written as [rumble], it's left to us to work out what is that rumbling sound. Video is an essential part of content consumption and according to Cisco, 80% of the global content consumption will be videos by 2019 and videos will also dominate 80% of the global traffic in 2019. So isn't it time that we take video experience even more seriously than ever before by making use of captions? I would like the audience to realise that captions is an essential part of user experience, and if you are creating videos (if not, why not? Need I remind you what Cisco predicts?), then you risk missing out. At the end of this tutorial session, you will walk away and realise that captions are just as important as good lighting, audio and storytelling. And not just any captions...but beautiful captions too. Because it's an art.

1. Making Captions
Beautiful (& Searchable)
to Improve Video
Experience
Ahmed Khalifa
https://khalifa.media
@IamAhmedKhalifa

3. It’s so nice and quiet here.

4. [Silence]

5. This suits me very well because it
means that we can hear better.

6. Because when it’s a noisy
environment,

7. like a bar or a restaurant

8. a conference.

9. It’s a struggle for me
personally, but also for many
people.

10. I do sometimes wish there are
captions right in front me

11. just so I can follow the
conversations and

12. be aware of my surroundings.
But that’s not possible.

13. The thing is, it’s not just about
having what is said typed

14. out in front of me. The quality
and accuracy of those captions

15. matters too. And the context
too. They all matter.

16. So these are the areas that I want
to cover today, making captions

17. right, making it work for
everyone…making it beautiful.

18. None of that auto-caption
nonsense.

19. And that will also mean we will
get some SEO benefits as well.

20. So get comfortable in your shit
and let me explain what I mean.

21. So get comfortable in your seat
and let me explain what I mean.

22. Photo by Immo

23. Photo by Maria

24. Auto-captions are
CRAPtion

26. Tweet by
@ninamasseyPA
“…Batman…”
“…that man…”

27. Video by Rhett &
“Core pressurization…”
“Core pressures Asian…”

28. Video by Rhett &
“…for halong…”

30. “…you’re going to book
your holiday…”
“…you Gordon Buchla
hardik…”

31. “Thank you, hello…”

32. “I am from Huddersfield…”

33. “I feel like I’m blushing…”

34. Video by Rhett &
“Rudolph the red nosed
reindeer”

35. Video by Rhett &
“...Cal Tech is a crazy rapist…”
“...Cal Tech has a crazy waitlist…”

36. Video by Rhett &
“...employee signs to a death customer…”
“...employee signs to a deaf customer…”

37. Content is King,
but Context is Key

38. Photo by Maria

42. The Accidental
Grammar &
Punctuation

43. Let’s eat
Grandma.
Let’s eat,
Grandma.

44. Photo by Maria
“…sin-bins. So Andy, the
game was well-managed…”

45. Photo by Maria
“…the stroke of a pen is…”

46. What Does the
Music Sound Like?

47. Photo by Maria

48. Photo by Maria

49. Photo by Maria

50. Photo by Maria

51. Photo by Maria

52. Where is the Sound
Coming From?

53. Photo by Maria

54. Photo by Maria

55. Are There Any
Sounds at All?

56. Photo by Maria

57. Photo by Maria

60. Is it Clear to See
and Easy to Read ?

61. Video by Rhett &

65. Go Big or Go Home?

68. Don’t get too far
ahead of
yourselves…

76. What Do You Get
Out of Captions?

77. Statistics by ‘Action on Hearing

78. Statistics by ‘World Health
Over 900 million people will be d/Deaf
or hard of hearing by 2050
Over 466 million d/Deaf and hard of
hearing people in the world

82. “…80% of people who use closed
captions are neither d/Deaf nor hard of
hearing.”
Statistic by Ofcom | Photo by Phillip Goldsberry

83. 85
%
Statistic by ‘Digiday’ | Photo by Alex Suprun
“…85% watch Facebook
video in silence.”

84. Statistics by Facebook | Photo by Will Francis
“…captioned video ads increase
video view time by an average of
12%..”

85. “…more than 82% of all consumer internet
traffic”
Statistics by Cisco | Photo by StartupStockPhotos
“…1 million minutes of video crossing the internet
per second”

86. What Does it Mean
for SEO?

87. “You should always review automatic captions and
edit any parts that haven't been properly
transcribed”.

89. “ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition)
produces about 60-80% accuracy rates....”
By 3PlayMedia | Image by Markus Spiske

91. 8 Rules of
Captioning

92. 1. Need to be clean & true
verbatim
Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi

93. 2. Include non-speech
elements
Photo by Splitshire

94. 3. It needs to follow proper
grammatical rules
Photo by

95. 4. Use upper & lower case
letters where appropriate
Photo by Markus

96. 5. Good size font & colour
contrast
Photo by Miguel Á.

97. 6. Translate profanity
(unless it’s bleeped out)
Photo by

98. 7. It needs to be done before
you publish your video
Photo by

99. 8. Never EVER depend on
auto-captions
Photo by energepic

100. Image by Chuttersnap

101. Thank You!
@IamAhmedKhalifa
Ahmed Khalifa
https://khalifa.media