Accessibility starts before you press record
Make captions, transcripts, contrast and navigation part of course production from the beginning.
You have finished recording a lesson. The slides are polished, the examples are clear, and the upload is ready. Then you realise the video has no captions, the worksheet relies on colour alone, and the next step is buried in a paragraph of small text. Fixing all three now means reopening the project, rerecording sections and checking every page again.
Start with the learner’s route
Before you write a script, map the route a learner takes from purchase to practice. They need to know what they are looking at, what to do next and how to tell whether they have completed the task. That route includes your sales page, checkout, welcome message, course dashboard, lesson pages, downloads and any community or coaching space.
- 1Give each lesson one clear purpose and a descriptive title. “Set up your first product page” tells the learner more than “Module 2, lesson 3”.
- 2Put the next action in the same place each time, such as at the end of the lesson. Use words that describe the action rather than “click here”.
- 3Keep the sequence visible. A learner should be able to tell which lessons are complete, which are available and what comes next without relying on colour alone.
- 4Make essential information available in the lesson itself. Do not assume that every learner can open a separate app, listen to audio or interpret an image.
This is also a production decision. If the lesson route depends on five unlabelled buttons and a hidden download, the problem is not solved by adding captions. A clear course structure is part of accessibility.
Write for captions before you record
Captions work best when your spoken lesson already has a clean shape. Write short sentences, name the person or object you are referring to, and say important on-screen text aloud. If you point to a button, say its label. If a slide shows a diagram, explain the relationship it contains rather than saying, “You can see this here.”
Leave space between ideas. This gives captions room to appear without becoming a dense block and makes the lesson easier to follow at a slower playback speed. Avoid placing essential instructions only in the recording’s visual layer. A learner who cannot see the screen should still be able to complete the task from the narration and transcript.
| Production choice | More usable approach |
|---|---|
| A visual demonstration | Describe the action as you perform it: name the menu, control or change on screen. |
| A slide with a diagram | Explain the parts and how they relate; do not depend on “the blue line” or “the item on the left”. |
| A downloadable worksheet | Use headings, labelled fields and instructions that do not rely on colour or position. |
| A lesson with music or sound effects | Keep speech distinct and identify meaningful sounds in the captions or transcript. |
Make transcripts useful, not decorative
A transcript can support learners who are deaf or hard of hearing, people working in a noisy or quiet environment, and anyone who wants to search or revisit a particular explanation. It is most useful when it preserves the lesson’s structure. Add headings, separate speakers when there is a conversation, and describe relevant actions or sounds in plain language.
Do not treat a transcript as an automatic dump that needs no review. Automated captions can mishear names, technical terms and numbers. Read through them against the recording, correct errors and check that punctuation does not change the meaning. If you sell a course through store.fan’s online course tools, decide where the transcript sits before you build the lesson: beneath the video, as a downloadable document, or both.
Design for sight, touch and attention
Contrast is not just a visual preference. Text that is too close in colour to its background becomes difficult to read, especially on a dim screen, a bright screen or a small mobile display. Check body text, buttons, labels and text placed over images. Do not use colour as the only way to show status, category or a correct answer: add a word, icon, pattern or position as a second cue.
Keep text readable by using clear hierarchy rather than shrinking everything to fit. One page should have an obvious main heading, meaningful subheadings and enough space around blocks of content. Links should describe their destination, such as “Download the lesson worksheet”, rather than repeating “Read more” several times.
If your course includes images, write alternative text for information-bearing images. A decorative flourish can be left out of the reading order. A chart needs a short explanation of its conclusion or a nearby data table. If an image contains instructions, put those instructions in ordinary text as well.
Build an accessibility pass into production
Use three small checks instead of one large review at launch. During planning, inspect the route and lesson outline. During production, check the script, slides and downloads. Before launch, test the finished purchase and learning experience from a learner account.
- Turn on captions and review the first and last minutes of every recording, plus any section with names, figures or specialist vocabulary.
- Read the transcript without watching the video. Can you understand the lesson’s purpose, sequence and task?
- View pages on a phone and desktop. Check that text, controls and downloads remain usable without zooming into one narrow area.
- Complete the course using only the keyboard where possible. Notice whether focus is visible and whether you can reach the lesson, media and next action in a sensible order.
- Ask at least one person who was not involved in production to find a lesson, open a download and complete an activity. Watch where they hesitate rather than explaining the interface.
A storefront can support the delivery side of this process, but you still own the content decisions. With store.fan’s store designer, you can make the customer-facing structure clearer; that does not automatically make every video, PDF or external tool accessible.
Choose tools that keep the work visible
Your delivery setup should make it easy to find the source files, update a transcript and replace an unclear download. Keep a simple accessibility record for each lesson: caption status, transcript status, image descriptions, document check and test result. When you revise a lesson, repeat the checks for the changed parts rather than assuming the old review still applies.
If you are selling digital products or courses, store.fan gives you a storefront at store.fan/yourname. Its free plan is link-in-bio only; paid plans start with a 14-day trial, and store.fan takes 0% of sales while Stripe’s own processing fee still applies. Money goes straight to your own Stripe account. Those commercial details do not replace accessibility work, but a straightforward delivery path gives you fewer places to inspect.
They serve different moments. Captions support people watching the recording, while a transcript is easier to scan, search, copy from or use without playing the video. For short lessons, one carefully reviewed text version may be enough if it is available in a practical place; for longer or instructional lessons, offering both is usually clearer.
Start with the lessons learners need to reach the outcome, then work through the rest in a stated order. Add a note about what is available, avoid presenting unfinished accessibility work as complete, and prioritise errors that block understanding rather than cosmetic changes.
A platform can help with navigation, delivery and some presentation choices, but it cannot describe your diagrams, correct specialist terms in captions or rewrite an unclear activity. Accessibility is shared between the platform, your files and your production process.
Plan your accessible course route, then build the storefront around the learner’s next step.
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