Transcripts are required anytime there is dialogue and/or important non-dialogue audio. Transcripts may also contain text descriptions of visual information. Here are some examples of multimedia types that require transcripts:
- Videos
- Audio files, podcasts
- Narrated slide presentations and slide presentations with embedded media
- Audio notes in text documents
This is not an exhaustive list of media that require transcripts; thus, be sure to do your research on accessibility requirements before publishing media to the web.
There are several ways to create a transcript.
- Modify a pre-made script
- Listen to the audio and manually type of what you hear into a text document
- Edit a transcript created by speech recognition software
- Pay a service
Modify a Pre-made Script
Writing a script before recording anything is good practice for many reasons. In terms of accessibility, it makes it easier and quicker to create a transcript (and even captions.) Simply modify the existing script and then make it available with the video.
Manually Transcribe
If a pre-made script is not available then another method is to listen to the audio and manually type out what you hear into a text document. Of course, this can be time-consuming if the media is long. Luckily, there are online tools that can speed up the process. oTranscribe is a free web app that allows a user to transcribe an audio file from their computer or a YouTube video. This tool is useful when transcribing audio files because it allows the user to slow down or speed up the audio as they are transcribing. The user can set the tool to a pace that is natural to them, which stops them from having to continuously pause and start the media.
Speech Recognition Software
Some tools use speech recognition software to automatically generate a rough transcript for media. The transcript will not be 100% accurate, which means the users will have to edit the file before making it available with their media. An example of a tool that does this is Google Voice. This tool is a Google telephone service that a user can access if they have a Google email account. It provides the user with an actual phone number that people can call. If someone calls and leaves a voicemail message, then not only can the user download that voice mail as an mp3 file but it also provides the user with a transcript automatically generated by speech recognition software. By going to Google Voice online, the user can edit the transcript and download it along with the mp3.