What We Talk About When We Talk About Video Accessibility
I’m happy to report that Kaltura’s accessibility efforts continue to move in a positive direction. But what exactly does that mean to us, and more importantly to you?
Well, I’m glad you asked.
Kaltura has had a focus on accessibility since almost the beginning. Things like the legacy 508 Player with big buttons and high contrast, support for closed captions, and more recently support for HTML5 and responsive design are some basic examples of how Kaltura has supported accessibility historically.
In the last year or so, Kaltura has expanded these video accessibility efforts and hired a company called Level Access (formerly SSB Bart Group) to help us test for and repair any issues in our platforms. And those updates have been rolling out throughout 2017, and we will be rolling out more updates and enhancements throughout the rest of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 with the aim of reaching a third party WCAG 2.0 AA validation.
But you already know that if you’ve been paying even the slightest bit of attention. Because we tend to talk about it a lot.
As you might imagine, we’re pretty proud of our investment and leadership around product accessibility in our market segment. But accessibility doesn’t end with the product. To be a market leader, a company has to bring expertise and understanding, and actively engage with its customers and the community; not just deliver product updates.
I’m happy to report that Kaltura is doing this today. Through our efforts with Level Access, accessibility is a priority when designing new products and functions. Kaltura’s employees are talking to customers about video accessibility and what it mean to them to better understand how they’re managing their accessibility efforts, and ultimately sharing that information with other customers who are struggling with the same challenges.
I personally am excited to see our work around video accessibility coming to fruition, and becoming a part of the company culture. You’d an expect more of this from us, and I’ll be sure and blog about it (of course).
