1.2.8 Media Alternative (Prerecorded)

1. What is the goal of this criterion?

Imagine you want to follow an important talk – but your sight is so limited you can’t read the captions, and your hearing so limited you can’t follow the audio description. For people with both vision and hearing impairments, and especially for deafblind people, captions or audio description aren’t enough.

The goal of WCAG Success Criterion 1.2.8 is to provide a complete text alternative for prerecorded media. It describes everything you can see and everything you can hear – in a coherent, readable form that can be used on a braille display, for example.

2. What exactly does it require?

In concrete terms, this Level AAA criterion requires a comprehensive text alternative for prerecorded media:

For synchronized media (video with sound): a complete text alternative containing all visual and all audio information – dialogue, sounds, music, actions, scene changes, visual effects.

For video-only content (no sound): a detailed description of all visual information in text form. Unlike Audio-only and Video-only (Prerecorded), a descriptive audio track isn’t enough here – it has to be text.

The text alternative reads like a screenplay: unlike audio description, it isn’t limited to the pauses between dialogue, but conveys the entire media experience as continuous text.

How it relates to 1.2.3: under Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded), the text version is one of two options. At Level AAA it’s required in addition – even if there’s already audio description. Incidentally, the normative text of 1.2.8 doesn’t name an explicit exception for media alternatives to text.

3. Why does it matter for accessibility?

Imagine you want to take an online course, but you’re deafblind and use a braille display. You can’t see captions and you can’t hear audio description – without a text alternative, the course content stays locked away.

Complete media alternatives create accessibility because they:

• give deafblind people access – they can take in the entire media experience on a braille display,
• help people with severe vision and hearing impairments who can use neither captions nor audio description,
• work universally – text can be converted into many forms: braille, large print, speech output,
• make searching and archiving possible – media content becomes fully findable and reusable,
• help everyone in certain situations – for example when looking up a specific passage, or when neither sound nor video suits the moment.

And: a text alternative is the most robust form of accessibility – it works on practically any device and with any assistive technology.

4. How to meet the criterion

Creating a complete media alternative takes real effort – but with the right approach it’s very manageable. A few proven strategies:

For the text alternative itself:

• Work chronologically – describe the media in the order it plays.
• Capture everything – what can be seen and what can be heard, including sounds, music and speaker changes.
• Write it like a screenplay – structure the text with speaker names, scene descriptions and actions.
• Include interactive elements – if the media contains interactions, describe them and offer equivalent alternatives, such as links.

Practical tips:

• Start with the transcript – if you already have captions or a transcript, use them as a base and add the visual descriptions.
• Use tools – transcription services and speech recognition give you a first draft; the visual descriptions you write yourself.
• Pay attention to structure – use headings, paragraphs and clear speaker labels for better readability.
• Have it tested – ask people with vision and hearing impairments to review the text alternative.

Technical implementation:

• A direct link to the full text right next to the media – or the text itself directly below it on the same page.
• Clean HTML structure – with semantic markup, so people can navigate by headings.
• A download option – as an accessible HTML document or a properly tagged PDF.

5. Why this criterion matters for businesses

Level AAA may sound like a nice-to-have at first – but complete media alternatives bring tangible benefits.

1. Leave no one out

Deafblind people and people with combined vision and hearing impairments depend on text. With complete media alternatives you don’t exclude anyone – including as an employer, for example with internal training videos.

2. Reuse your content

A complete text alternative is a good basis for blog posts, training materials or summaries. You produce once and use the content many times.

3. Findable content

Search engines and other systems handle text far better than audio or video. A text version therefore makes your media content easier to find indirectly – even though accessibility itself isn’t a ranking factor.

On the legal side: what the law usually requires is Level AA. The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025 – in Germany through the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG) – and relies on EN 301 549, which refers to WCAG 2.1 Level AA for web content. 1.2.8 isn’t part of the mandatory scope. (General information, not legal advice.)

6. The success criterion in the W3C’s words

Success Criterion 1.2.8 Media Alternative (Prerecorded) (Level AAA)

An alternative for time-based media is provided for all prerecorded synchronized media and for all prerecorded video-only media.

In short: every prerecorded video – with or without sound – has a complete text alternative that conveys picture and sound equivalently.