Accessible OzPlayer Video Player
Matt McLeod, Gian Wild · 2016 · Proceedings of the 13th International Web for All Conference (W4A) · doi:10.1145/2899475.2899507
Summary
This extended abstract presents OzPlayer, a web video player built by Australian accessibility consultancy AccessibilityOz specifically to address the widespread inaccessibility of popular video players on the web. The authors, who routinely audited client websites, found that none of the commonly used video players could be recommended as accessible — prompting them to build their own. OzPlayer runs as a CSS and JavaScript overlay on top of the native HTML5 video element in modern browsers, with a Flash fallback for older browsers still common in government, corporate, and disability communities. For YouTube-hosted videos, OzPlayer wraps the chromeless YouTube player with its own accessible controls, providing a consistent user experience regardless of video source. The paper defines the essential requirements for an accessible video player: full keyboard operability for all controls (play, pause, rewind, volume, captions, audio descriptions), full mouse operability, no autoplay (or a mechanism to pause at the top of the page), support for captions, and support for audio descriptions.
Key findings
The paper audits five popular video players and documents their specific accessibility failures. YouTube requires users to backward-Tab over ten times to reach controls and lacks support for multiple audio tracks for audio descriptions. JWPlayer only allows keyboard play/pause — no other controls are keyboard accessible — and uses insufficient colour contrast and colour alone to indicate feature activation. Kaltura has an inaccessible seek bar, poor focus indicators, and no audio description support. Brightcove has no keyboard-accessible controls at all and no audio description support. Vimeo has inaccessible seek bar and volume controls, poor focus indicators, and no audio description support. The most common failure across all players is keyboard support — players may allow play/pause via keyboard but not volume control, seeking, or toggling captions/audio descriptions. None of the reviewed players support audio descriptions. OzPlayer addresses all of these issues: it provides full keyboard and mouse access to all features using native HTML controls, supports WebVTT captions with a synchronized scrolling transcript (merging a "transcript extras" track with captions), implements audio descriptions via a separate MP3/OGG audio file played over the video audio, and includes skip links to bypass the video or jump directly to the transcript.
Relevance
This paper documents a practical problem that remains highly relevant: mainstream video players on the web are frequently inaccessible, creating barriers for keyboard-only users, screen reader users, and people who need captions or audio descriptions. The systematic audit of five major players provides a useful reference for accessibility practitioners evaluating video solutions for their organisations. The most striking finding is the universal lack of audio description support across all reviewed players — a critical gap for blind and low-vision users who cannot access visual-only content in videos. OzPlayer's approach of overlaying accessible controls on the native HTML5 video element is architecturally sound, and its transcript feature (a synchronized, scrolling text representation alongside the video) serves multiple user groups including deaf users, people with cognitive disabilities, and anyone in a sound-sensitive environment. For web developers, the paper serves as a practical checklist of what makes a video player accessible, with the most important takeaway being that keyboard accessibility of all controls — not just play/pause — is the minimum bar.
Tags: video accessibility · media accessibility · keyboard accessibility · captions · audio description · web development · multimedia accessibility
Standards referenced: WCAG 2.0 · WebVTT