1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded)

WCAG 2.2 · 1.2.5 AA Perceivable

What it requires

Audio description must be provided for all prerecorded video content in synchronized media (video with audio). Audio description is an added narration track, inserted into pauses in the existing dialogue, that conveys the important visual information a person who cannot see the screen would otherwise miss — on-screen actions, characters, scene changes, and any text shown only as images.

This criterion applies only to prerecorded synchronized media. If all the information in the video track is already presented in the audio track, no separate description is needed. (Live media and media alternatives are covered by other criteria.)

  • Blind and low-vision users who hear the soundtrack but cannot see actions, gestures, scenery, or on-screen text that the audio leaves unexplained.
  • People with cognitive disabilities who benefit from the extra verbal context describing what is happening.
  • Anyone consuming the video without watching the screen, such as while multitasking — though the criterion exists for users with disabilities.

How to detect it

Checks for Audio Description (Prerecorded)
Check What to look for
Manual review Watch the video with the screen hidden. Note any important visual information (actions, on-screen text, who is speaking) not conveyed by the default audio.
Description availability Confirm an audio-described version or a description track exists and can be turned on — a player control, a separate version, or an additional track.
Screen reader / keyboard Check that any "audio description" toggle is reachable and operable by keyboard and announced by a screen reader.
Automated tools Tools such as axe cannot verify this. The presence and quality of description is a human judgement; automation only flags missing media elements at best.

How to fix it

  1. Identify the important visual information in the video that the existing audio does not convey.
  2. Script concise narration for those gaps and record it into the natural pauses in the dialogue.
  3. Provide the described audio — either as a standard description track, a separate described version, or an extended-description option where pauses are too short.
  4. Expose a clear, keyboard-operable control to enable the description, using a <track> of kind="descriptions" where the player supports it.
<video controls>
  <source src="film.mp4" type="video/mp4">
  <track kind="descriptions" src="film-desc.vtt" srclang="en" label="Audio descriptions">
  <track kind="captions" src="film-cc.vtt" srclang="en" label="English captions">
</video>

Copy-paste tests

Automated coverage

There is no fully automated axe-core rule for 1.2.5 — the presence and quality of audio description is a human judgement, so this criterion needs manual review using the console check and steps below.

Run this in the browser console

console — find video without descriptions 
// Read-only: list prerecorded videos and whether a description track exists.
const vids = [...document.querySelectorAll('video')];
console.table(vids.map(v => ({
  src: v.currentSrc || v.querySelector('source')?.src || '(none)',
  hasDescriptionsTrack: !!v.querySelector('track[kind="descriptions"]'),
  trackKinds: [...v.querySelectorAll('track')].map(t => t.kind).join(', ') || '(none)'
})));
vids.filter(v => !v.querySelector('track[kind="descriptions"]'))
    .forEach(v => { v.style.outline = '3px solid red'; console.log('Review for audio description:', v); });

What to check manually: watch each video with the screen hidden and confirm the audio alone conveys on-screen actions, scene changes, and image-only text; and verify any description track is actually narrated (not empty) and toggleable by keyboard.