How to Increase Online Video Accessibility

The reasons why businesses use online video include benefits during the onboarding process and using the tool to enhance partner relationships. However, once you’ve started creating videos, how can you make better content for your viewers? Simple: by increasing the accessibility, which means the ease at which viewers can find and watch the video.

However, how can content creators up the accessibility factor of their videos? Jeff Fissel from business video platform Kzoinnovations.com is here today to give us three tips on how to do just that.

Tip #1:  Optimize Search and Indexing

Content creators should opt for video platforms that allow several different types of content indexing.  A few indexing basics are listed below:

• Have chapters in video content.  Chapters give viewers the ability to easily navigate longer videos in order to only view the most relevant clips at any given point in time.  For example, watching an entire industry conference might not be realistic.  Instead, bookmark highlights of the conference in addition to segmenting the entire video by topic, presentation, etc.

• Use metadata tags.  Allow individuals to search for specific keywords or topics that are found in the video.  The best tags are time stamped.  This increases accessibility by allowing searchers to locate and view the most relevant part of an online video.

• Add closed captioning.  Add a transcript below the video to improve search options.  Closed captioning can also help a video connect with a multilingual audience.

Make the video easy to find by using best practices in search, and make the video easy to view by allowing viewers to choose whether they want to view the entire video or a few different video clips.

Tip #2: Consider Different Levels of Access Permissions

Some online video is intended for strictly internal use, whereas other online video is intended for external use.  It is important to choose which level of access permissions is appropriate for each video.  Purely external videos practically have no limitations regarding who can view them.  Additional information can be volunteered by viewers if desired, or additional information (e.g. demographic data) can be set as a prerequisite in order to view the video.

However, internal video is often broken into different access tiers by defining access groups.  For example, an internal video might showcase a new product line in addition to upcoming industry news.  Access controls can be set to grant viewing permission only to sales and marketing personnel.  Conversely, other online video might contain highly sensitive information such as trade secrets and financial information for privately owned and traded companies.  Online video can be an effective way to disseminate sensitive information to multiple branch managers with the creation of the right access permissions.

Tip #3: Viewer Accessibility on Different Devices

Online videos are often most effective when viewers are able to access them from mobile devices in addition to personal computers.  Effectively delivering mobile video content can be a challenge.  It is important to create online video content that is supported by almost all major operating systems for personal computers, smartphones, and tablets.  Similarly, it is important to create online video that is supported by all major web browsers.

Accessible and Effective Video Creation

Optimize the viewer experience by increasing the accessibility of online videos.  Add indexing and search options, select the best content access permissions, and create content that is supported by major operating systems and web browsers.