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If you are sharing video content from other creators, it is important to identify if a video you are considering has automated or human-edited captions. If you can find and share a video with human-edited captions, this will offer your audience a more accessible experience than a video with automated captions. Automated captions are not sufficiently accurate for content that is publicly available or to fulfill accommodation requests from students, employees, or members of the public. This page will provide information about how to quickly identify automated captions and human-edited captions in videos. You can also review the Captioning Quality Guidelines for more detailed information about the ideal quality of human-edited captions.

Note: There is a tutorial available that provides detailed information about identifying automated captions and searching for videos with human-edited captions on YouTube. Please refer to this resource for information specifically about YouTube.

Identifiers for Human-Edited Captions

• Captions appear on the screen in logical sections of text, up to two lines of text at a time. This typically creates a more seamless option for the viewer to read the captions and also focus on other visual elements of the video.
• Speakers are identified.
• Captions include meaningful non-speech sounds and music lyrics or descriptions.
• Captions include accurate punctuation, grammar, spelling, and capitalization. Any errors are minimal.
• When enabling captioning, the video language is described and may also include CC. There is no wording to describe the captions as automated.

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Identifiers for Automated Captions

• Captions are added and removed from the screen one (or a few) word(s) at a time. The constant movement of words on the screen can make it challenging for some viewers to read all captions and watch other visual elements of the video.
• Speakers are not identified.
• Captions do not include meaningful non-speech sounds and music lyrics or descriptions.
• Captions have errors in punctuation, grammar, spelling, and capitalization.
• When enabling captioning, wording like auto-generated or auto is used to describe the available captions.