What are Captions?
Captions, also called subtitles, provide a visual alternative to audio information. The caption text is displayed below the video so you can see the video synchronized with the text.
![Still shot from a video with captions displayed.](https://www.chhs.colostate.edu/accessibility/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2022/02/Text-displayed-below-a-video.png)
Why Use Captions?
Captions provide an alternative to audio that helps all types of users, including
- Deaf or hard of hearing
- Learning disabilities
- Visual or multi-modal learners
- English language learners
- Watching in noisy environment
- Watching in quiet environment
- Scrolling on social media
- Deciphering unfamiliar accents
Need for Accuracy
Many video platforms provide automated captioning. Auto-captions are good for increasing the general usability of videos for many people, but they aren’t 100% accurate. For accommodation needs, captions must be accurate to be usable. Auto-captions will need to be edited manually for accommodation needs.
For example, in this snapshot of a Cheers episode, the captions are nonsensical: “I would have wanted to always Iraq was a cat fight police tell me if there was a cat fight.” Inaccurate captions can be worse than none at all.
![Men at a bar (screen from Cheers TV show), with scrambled captions.](https://www.chhs.colostate.edu/accessibility/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2022/02/Auto-caption-fail.jpg)