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Communications and Marketing: Web Services

Requirements for Videos

Last modified: August 19, 2023
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First, make sure any video meets the following requirements if it is hosted on a UAMS video platform account and/or embedded on a UAMS web property.

To help with this, we need the following information and content.

Video Title

  • YouTube allows up to 100 characters for video titles. However, Google limits most titles to around 70 characters, so it’s good to have the most important information right up front in the title (e.g., “Keyword 1, Keyword 2 | Your College/Department, UAMS”)
  • Make sure the title matches the content of the video.
  • Write the title with the intended audience in mind. Make it relevant to their interests and concerns.
  • Include any primary keyword(s) at the beginning of the title.
  • Exclude any references to versions or drafts in the title.

Video Description

Your video description should describe the content and purpose of the video.

While YouTube permits up to 5,000 characters for the description field, only the first 157 characters will appear as a snippet in search results. It’s important to front-load your descriptions with the most important information.

Additionally, Google and YouTube rely on your text description to determine your video’s content. It’s perfectly fine to include one or two of your most compelling keywords in the meta description, but avoid keyword-stuffing—repetition is often seen by Google as a sign of spam.

Video Thumbnail

Provide a good thumbnail image for the video that is relevant to the content and purpose of the video. The image must be at least 1920px x 1080px and must have an aspect ratio of 16:9.

Examples of what a bad thumbnail would be:

  • An image of a person other than the primary subject(s) of the video. If it is a Faces of UAMS video, the thumbnail should be of the featured individual.
  • An unflattering image of an individual. When someone is in the middle of speaking, there can be many frames where their eyes are closed (or halfway closed) and/or their mouth in a strange shape.

Closed Captions and Transcripts

The video must have a closed captions track.

  • The closed captions must not have been automatically generated. Alternatively, if the closed captions were automatically generated, they must have been comprehensively verified for accuracy by a human.
  • All the content available via the audio track is available in the closed captions track.
  • All the text content displayed in the video track is available in the closed captions track.

To meet accessibility requirements, please provide a transcript of the video so that it can be used for YouTube closed captions and transcripts.

Additional Information on These Requirements

Captions are required by Web Consortium Accessibility Guidelines Success Criterion 1.2.2 (Level A) for all prerecorded audio content in synchronized media, except when the media is a media alternative for text and is clearly labeled as such.

The [Web Consortium Accessibility Guidelines] is an internationally recognized set of guidelines for digital accessibility. … The de facto standard in the US – recognized (yet not set) by the [Department of Justice], the courts, and advocates is the [Web Consortium Accessibility Guidelines] 2.0 A, AA. … These are the requirements that virtually all demand letters, federal and state lawsuits, DOJ, and [Department of Education] actions have called for. Regardless of how firm this standard may technically be, in practice, if you wish to avoid litigation and wish to make your website accessible, the working standard for digital accessibility is [Web Consortium Accessibility Guidelines] 2.1 A, AA in the United States (and Canada).

Accessibility.works, “2023 ADA Web Accessibility Standards & Requirements” (https://www.accessibility.works/blog/2023-wcag-ada-website-compliance-standards-requirements/)

Auto-generated caption files supplied by YouTube, Vimeo and others are not considered viable according to the Department of Justice for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (according to UCLA).

Including closed captions instead of (or in addition to) open captions will help to accommodate any deaf-blind users.

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