[Athen] Keyboard Accessibility in YouTube

[Amy Beth Netzel]

Greetings,

I'm reaching out to the Athens listserv as well as the Buffalo listserv to seek your input.
About a week and a half ago, I saw on an accessibility listserv (not sure which one it was) that there might be some keyboard accessibility issues in YouTube, namely the inability to toggle captions on and off. I didn't see anything else mentioned about it since then, so I decided to research the issue a little to learn more about the situation.

It appears as though using Tab to try to move the focus to the Closed-Caption icon produces unreliable results (in most cases, the focus skips the icon altogether or skips over the viewer, in general). Unfortunately, YouTube does not have a specific keyboard shortcut for toggling the captions on and off.

I'm approaching the listservs to see if there's been any more word regarding this issue and how it impacts post-secondary course content that is posted and delivered via YouTube. I've also sent a message to Google's Accessibility Board to let them know how this poses a problem for viewers with hearing disabilities who also have mobility restrictions and are unable to use a mouse to click the icon.

Thoughts?

Thank you,

Amy Netzel

Accessibility Technologist
Wake Technical Community College
Raleigh, NC
Email correspondence to and from this address may be subject to the North Carolina Public Records law and may be disclosed to third parties by an authorized state official (NCGS. ch. 132). Student educational records are subject to FERPA.
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