ACT Rule afb423 · proposed
Audio element content is media alternative for text
Sometimes the audio is the alternative rather than the thing that needs one. A recording of an article that is already on the page in full does not need a transcript, because the page is the transcript. This rule checks for that arrangement and for the label that tells a reader the two are the same content.
A tool can find the places this applies and then hand you the decision. The rule is proposed, so it has not yet been implemented in full by a tool and reviewed by a W3C working group, and the wording can still change.
Why passing this rule settles nothing about WCAG
W3C's requirements mapping for this rule names no WCAG success criterion as a conformance requirement. That is the position of 24 of the 87 live rules and this is one of them, which is why a scanner can flag it while an auditor leaves it out of the findings. Both of them are reading the same page correctly.
Like its sibling, it is one input to a composite rule and clears nothing by itself. What a person has to confirm is that the text really does cover the whole recording, and that a reader can tell from the page that it does.
The composite rule this one feeds
This is an atomic input rule, which is why it names no criterion of its own. W3C combines its outcome with the other inputs below, and it is the composite that maps to WCAG. A report that cites this rule id alone has told you about one ingredient, not about the dish.
- Audio element content has text alternative A tool finds candidates, you decide
The normative rule text lives at W3C
What the rule applies to, and exactly what it expects, is published by W3C and can change. We link to it rather than restate it, so nothing here can quietly fall out of date against the source. Read rule afb423 at W3C.
Transcripts, captions and audio description are not the same thing
Which alternative a piece of media needs depends on what is in it. Video with sound needs captions so a deaf viewer gets the dialogue. It also needs audio description so a blind viewer gets what is only shown on screen.
Audio on its own needs a transcript. Video with no sound needs either a transcript or an audio track. Getting one of these right does not cover the others. Several rules look at the same file and ask different questions about what it has to be.
The usual mistake is a transcript posted under a video and treated as finished. It helps, but it is not a caption. It does not meet the criterion that asks for captions.
All 87 ACT rules are grouped by the criteria they test, and 24 of them decide nothing about WCAG on their own. Run a free scan to see which of these your own pages trip.