✎ Technique: Choosing a media player

Media player accessibility is essential for video content. Evaluate the accessibility and cross-device compatibility of the media player that comes with your video-distribution platform. Test the player in different platforms and devices to evaluate the user experience it provides out of the box.

Examples

Test the player for keyboard accessibility:

• Can all the controls receive keyboard focus?
• Can you operate them using your keyboard?
• Can you see which control has focus?

Also try using the media player with a screen reader.

• Are all the controls’ names announced?
• Do the controls’ names make sense—do they describe the function of the control?
• Is the current setting or status of each control announced? For example, does the scrub control announce the time point that it currently refers to? When the video is paused, is the Play/Pause button labelled as “play” (the action associated with activating it) and vice versa?

Also check whether the media player offers captions, and that the controls to enable and disable captions are accessible using the keyboard.