All the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) videos, including webinar recordings, must follow the guidelines based on Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, a law that requires all federal content to be accessible to all audiences. Per this regulation, all video, animation (e.g., gif or interactive graphic), and audio assets must have a text version.
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Like other videos, webinar recordings must have captions and text versions. However, this process can be very expensive and time-consuming for a long video with a lot of text. If you need a more cost-effective option for posting webinars, consider one of these simpler approaches:
- Post the webinar as an audio file (see below), which only requires a text version.
- Post the webinar's slides or transcripts in PDF format, which requires you to follow CMEI's guidelines for PDFs.
Videos
For a higher quality product, your video should:
- Be embedded on a page with relevant content.
- Clearly show the producer as DOE, CMEI, and/or a CMEI office by attaching a watermark or by indicating clear ownership through the content or dialogue.
- Give users the option to pause/play (not start automatically).
- Be 1920x1080 or 1280x720 resolution and in the original frame rate it was recorded in, ideally 24–30 fps with website support up to 60 fps.
- Be short (approximately 3 to 5 minutes long) in total or as a segment in a longer series for web and even shorter (between 30 and 60 seconds) for social media.
To post videos on DOE’s YouTube channel, follow these required steps.
Videos can be uploaded in one of two ways: unlisted or public.
Unlisted videos are not visible publicly on DOE's YouTube channel, but they can be linked to or embedded on Web pages at the program's discretion. Unlisted videos require no special approval. Once your video has been completed, follow the steps to upload your video to YouTube.
Public videos appear publicly on the DOE YouTube channel. They may also be added to the CMEI video gallery at the discretion of CMEI Communications. Public videos must be approved by the CMEI communications team, with consultation strongly recommended prior to production. Public videos should be short—3 minutes maximum—and designed for the general public. The media team will require that you submit scripts and/or rough cuts for review, and changes to your video content or branding may be necessary for approval. This may delay project completion and significantly impact the final content. However, public videos will usually be more visible, including appearing on CMEI’s video gallery and social media channels.
To upload your video to YouTube:
- Send your transcript to your lead contractor. Ask them to create a caption file from it. They should create either an .SRT file or one of the alternative formats outlined in YouTube's caption file documentation. This file will be used to add closed captions to your YouTube video, adhering to Section 508 requirements.
- Send the following items to Accenture:
- Your video (as an mp4 file)
- The title of the video
- The caption/transcript file
- A short description of the video.
- Who produced the video (ex. CMEI Corporate, Wind and Water, Geothermal, etc.)
- Written CMEI communications approval for public listing, if necessary.
- Wait to receive the uploaded video’s YouTube link.
- Create a video media node in the Energy.gov content management system (CMS) by going to the Content tab, selecting Media -> Add Media -> Video. Always add:
- A name and summary under the Basics tab.
- The YouTube link in the Video URL box in the Details tab, then add a caption and attribution.
- Appropriate office assignments.
- Open the Layout of the webpage you want to embed the video on and select Add Template and pick Media from the template menu, then click the Add Media button and select your video from the Video tab, using Insert Selected to finalize the addition.
- This was an empty link: Create a Create a text version for Section 508 compliance and then:
- Add the text version to the CMEI video gallery if your video is public and has been added to the CMEI video gallery by CMEI’s communications team (as exemplified by the Energy 101: Geothermal Energy video).
- Post the text version on a separate page and link to it beneath the embed if your video is unlisted.
- Send the text version's URL to Accenture to add to the video's summary text on YouTube, to ensure your video includes both a text version and captions.
- Send your transcript to your lead contractor. Ask them to create a caption file from it. They should create either an .SRT file or one of the alternative formats outlined in YouTube's caption file documentation. This file will be used to add closed captions to your YouTube video, adhering to Section 508 requirements.
Animations (GIFs and Interactive Graphics)
Animations are dynamic elements, such as interactive charts or maps. Follow CMEI's branding, design and coding requirements when creating animations.
If you want to create an animation for Energy.gov, contact the CMEI Digital Team. They can discuss options with you and help select the best choice for your project.
To be Section 508 compliant, animations must:
- Provide audio controls so that sounds can be started by a user rather than requiring the user to stop the sound (not playing automatically when a user lands on the page).
- Use colors with sufficient contrast, not override user settings, and not be the only way that information is conveyed.
- Cannot contain anything that flashes more than 3 times in 1 second.
- Provide a well-defined, on-screen indication of the current focus that moves among interactive interface elements as the input focus changes, with the focus programmatically exposed so that assistive technology can track focus and focus changes.
- Allow interaction through keyboard control.
- Include labels or instructions that do not rely solely on sensory characteristics, such as color, shape, size, visual location, orientation, or sound.
- Provide a clear way to pause, stop, or hide moving, blinking, scrolling, and auto-updating information, unless the content cannot be understood without it and the functionality cannot be achieved in any other way.
- Offer download links to any plug-ins or applications that are required to interpret the content.
- Not make the hosting webpage unusable when the script is turned off.
- Work on every browser in CMEI's browser testing suite.
- Alert a user when a timed response is required and give them sufficient time to do so.
- Must have a text version that includes a full transcript of all of the speech, text, and action (see additional guidance at WebAim.org or the National Center for Accessible Media).
Audio
Audio-only files—whether they are downloaded from a page or distributed via a podcast—must be accessible to all visitors of CMEI’s website. Audio-only files must:
- Be in MP3 format.
- Be uploaded to the energy.gov CMS following file naming requirements.
- Be contained on a webpage along with a text version pasted in the body of the page with a descriptive title, summary, and body text.