Accessibility: WCAG, Captions, and Alt Text — The Course Creator's Glossary

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)

The international standard for making web content accessible to people with disabilities. Published by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

Three levels of compliance:

Level A — Minimum. Basic accessibility features.
Level AA — The standard most organizations target. Covers the majority of accessibility needs.
Level AAA — Highest. Comprehensive but difficult to achieve for all content.

Do you need to care? Yes, for both ethical and legal reasons. In many countries, digital accessibility is legally required for businesses. At minimum, aim for Level AA on your sales pages and course content.

Closed Captions

Text displayed on screen that transcribes the audio of a video. “Closed” means the viewer can turn them on or off. (Open captions are always visible, burned into the video.)

Why they matter:

Required for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers
Helpful for non-native speakers who read better than they listen
Used by people watching in sound-sensitive environments (offices, public transit)
Improve SEO (search engines index caption text)
Required for WCAG compliance

How to add them: Most course platforms support caption uploads (SRT or VTT files). YouTube auto-generates captions (review and correct them — AI captions make errors). Tools like Rev.com offer professional captioning.

Alt Text (Alternative Text)

A description of an image that screen readers read aloud to visually impaired users. Also displayed when an image fails to load.

How to write good alt text:

Describe what’s in the image, not “image of…”
Be specific: “Bar chart showing email open rates by day of week” not “chart”
Keep it under 125 characters
Don’t alt-text decorative images (use empty alt="" instead)

Example: <img src="pricing-table.png" alt="Three-tier pricing table showing Basic at $97, Professional at $297, and Premium at $997">

Software that reads digital content aloud for people who are blind or visually impaired. Popular screen readers include JAWS, NVDA (Windows), and VoiceOver (Mac/iOS).

Why it matters: If your course content isn’t structured properly, screen readers can’t make sense of it. Use proper headings (H1, H2, H3), lists, and alt text.

Section 508

A US law requiring federal agencies and their contractors to make electronic content accessible. Often used as a shorthand for “accessibility compliance” in the US.

Do you need to care? If you sell courses to US government agencies or federal contractors, yes. Otherwise, WCAG is the broader standard to follow.

ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications)

A set of attributes added to HTML that make dynamic content (menus, modals, drag-and-drop) accessible to screen readers.

Do you need to care? Only if you’re building custom web components. Standard course platforms handle ARIA automatically.

Color Contrast

The difference in brightness between text and its background. WCAG requires a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.

Practical test: Can you read your text if you squint? If not, the contrast is too low. Tools like WebAIM’s contrast checker tell you exactly where you stand.

The ability to use a website without a mouse — tabbing through links, buttons, and form fields. Essential for people with motor disabilities who use keyboard-only navigation.

Quick test: Try navigating your course sales page using only the Tab key. If you get stuck or can’t reach important elements, there’s a problem.

The Practical Minimum

For most course creators, accessibility comes down to these five things:

Add captions to every video — auto-generated is fine, but review for errors
Write alt text for every meaningful image — describe what’s shown
Use proper heading structure — H1 for page titles, H2 for sections, H3 for subsections
Check color contrast — make sure text is readable against the background
Make sure your site works without a mouse — test with keyboard navigation

These five steps cover 80% of accessibility requirements with minimal effort.