Accessibility of Internet TV players in the UK

Ben Logan - Published: 26th Jan 2010 10:02 GMT

Internet television (otherwise known as Internet TV, Catch-up TV or Online TV) is a television service distributed via the Internet and has grown rapidly in popularity and usage over the last three years.

The services offered by internet television providers varies but mainly comes in two different flavours, the first being a streaming service of programs archived and available in some cases only for a set number of time e.g. one month . The second allows users to choose the program or the TV show they want and simply download the program onto the user's computer.

Benefits of accessible video

Accessible video is becoming more mainstream on the web and some content providers are taking clear steps in this direction, particularly with regards to captions on archived programs.

People who are deaf or hard of hearing cannot hear the audio on video content, so providing a transcript, or captions will allow them to access the content contained within these movies but this also benefits a wider audience such as customers trying to access the content in a noisy environment.

A lot of corporate companies we have visited have the sound disabled on their machines by default and the user is not able to change the settings on the machine due to lack of 'Administrator' privileges. Customers can have missing, broken, or otherwise inadequate sound hardware on their computer.

Captioned multimedia also allows the content to be indexed and archived so that it is fully searchable. A growing number of companies are developing video search applications based on closed captions.

Not every user operates their computer with a mouse, so by allowing them to control the video player with the keyboard, you are increasing the number of users that can successfully watch your video content online.

Summary of results

The list below shows the internet TV channels in order of the least number of non-compliances with the BBC having the least non-compliances and Sky having the most non-compliances.

• BBC – iPlayer – 3 non compliances
• Channel 4 – 4oD - 7 non compliances
• Channel 5 – Demand 5 - 10 non compliances
• ITV – ITV Player - 11 non compliances
• Sky – Sky Player - 12 non compliances

Methodology

We chose five UK TV providers and primarily focused our tests on the players themselves and not all of the surrounding content on the page. We chose to conduct a manual expert review for the purposes of this article, and the players were evaluated by a fully sighted consultant to form an assessment of their compliance with the Priority 2 (Level AA) requirements of the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C's) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 as well as some general usability checkpoints.

Each page was tested using these techniques:

• Manual inspection of the source code.
• User interface testing via the GUI of a standard web browser (Windows Vista Business, Internet Explorer 8.0, and Adobe Flash Player 10.0.32.18).

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Who we looked at

We based our tests on the following five internet TV players based in the UK.

BBC – iPlayer - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/

ITV – ITV Player - http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/

Channel 4 – 4oD - http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4od

Channel 5 – Demand 5 - http://demand.five.tv/Home.aspx

Sky – Sky Player - http://skyplayer.sky.com/vod/page/default/home.do

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Tests we conducted

We tested each site against the following criteria, some of which are based on specific WCAG 2.0 level AA checkpoints, and others are more general usability guidelines:

• Can the user tab around the controls within the player with the keyboard?
• Can the user tab into the player from the web page where it is embedded?
• Does the pre-recorded video or program contain captions or subtitles?
• Does the live video or program contain captions or subtitles?
• Can the volume be adjusted easily by both keyboard and mouse?
• Does the video auto play or does it require an action first such as pressing play?
• Is there a full screen version that can be operated using the keyboard or other input device e.g. a mouse?
• Are the buttons labelled correctly and read out in screen readers such as Job Access With Speech (JAWS) 10

Detailed WCAG 2.0 test results

Below is the table of WCAG 2.0 test results for each TV player. We have not tested each WCAG 2.0 checkpoint, but have taken a more relevant subset of twelve checkpoints up to Level AA (we have excluded Level AAA for the purposes of this test), nine under 'Level A' and three under Level 'AA':

Level A

	BBC	ITV	4oD	Demand 5	Sky
Level A	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA
1.2.1 - Pre-recorded audio-only and video-only	NA Site does not contain any pre-recorded audio only or video only.	NA Site does not contain any pre-recorded audio only or video only.	NA Site does not contain any pre-recorded audio only or video only.	NA Site does not contain any pre-recorded audio only or video only.	NA Site does not contain any pre-recorded audio only or video only.
1.2.2 - Captions	Pass Various archived programs do contain subtitles.	Fail Programs do not contain captions or subtitles.	Pass Various archived programs do contain subtitles.	Fail Programs do not contain captions or subtitles.	Fail Programs do not contain captions or subtitles.
1.2.3 - Audio description or media alternative	Pass The BBC do have Audio Description on a variety of programs on the iPlayer but not all.	Fail	Fail	Fail	Fail
1.3.2 - Meaningful sequence	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass
1.4.2 - Audio control	Pass Audio does not play automatically.	Fail Audio does play automatically.	Fail Audio does play automatically.	Fail Audio does play automatically.	Fail Audio does play automatically.
2.1.1 - Keyboard	Pass Flash content is not accessible via the keyboard in Firefox but is accessible with Internet Explorer due to the way this has been embedded . For pages with parental guidance we did note that the user was not able to tab to the checkbox to confirm they were over 16.	Fail Flash content is not accessible via the keyboard in or Internet Explorer due to the way this has been embedded in the page. For pages with parental guidance we did note that the user was not able to activate the buttons such as 'Play video' to confirm they were over 18.	Pass Flash content is not accessible via the keyboard in Firefox but is accessible with Internet Explorer due to the way this has been embedded.	Pass Flash content is not accessible via the keyboard in Firefox but is accessible with Internet Explorer due to the way this has been embedded.	Fail Flash content is not accessible via the keyboard in or Internet Explorer due to the way this has been embedded.
2.1.2 - No Keyboard trap	Pass In Firefox we could create a keyboard trap by first clicking on the Flash video element, then attempting to tab around past the last control.	Pass In Firefox we could create a keyboard trap by first clicking on the Flash video element, then attempting to tab around past the last control.	Pass In Firefox we could create a keyboard trap by first clicking on the Flash video element, then attempting to tab around past the last control.	Pass In Firefox we could create a keyboard trap by first clicking on the Flash video element, then attempting to tab around past the last control.	Fail In Internet Explorer and Firefox the user cannot tab past a certain point in the page.
2.2.2 - Pause, stop, hide	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass
2.4.3 - Focus order	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass
Totals	0	4	2	3	5

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Level AA

	BBC	ITV	4oD	Demand 5	Sky
Level A	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA
1.2.4 - Captions (live)	Fail	Fail	Fail	Fail	Fail
1.2.5 - Audio description	Pass The BBC do have Audio Description on a variety of programs on the iPlayer but not all.	Fail	Fail	Fail	Fail
2.4.7 - Focus visible	Fail Focus indicator is not always visible in newer Mozilla browsers as well as Internet Explorer particularly on surrounding links when using the keyboard.	Fail Focus indicator is not always visible in newer Mozilla browsers as well as Internet Explorer particularly on surrounding links when using the keyboard.	Fail Focus indicator is not always visible in newer Mozilla browsers as well as Internet Explorer particularly on surrounding links when using the keyboard.	Fail Focus indicator is not always visible in newer Mozilla browsers as well as Internet Explorer particularly on surrounding links when using the keyboard.	Fail Focus indicator is not always visible in newer Mozilla browsers as well as Internet Explorer particularly on surrounding links when using the keyboard.
Totals	2	3	3	3	3

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Detailed other test results

Below is the table of other test results for each TV player:

	BBC	ITV	4oD	Demand 5	Sky
Item	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA	Pass/Fail/NA
Does the video player contain a full screen option?	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass	Pass
Does the video play sound automatically on visiting the page?	Pass	Fail	Pass	Fail	Fail
Can the volume or timeline be adjusted by the keyboard?	Pass	Fail	Fail	Fail	Fail
Are the video controls contained within the video player or on the page?	Fail	Fail	Fail	Fail	Fail
Buttons labels correctly identified in JAWS?	Pass With the exception of the ‘Full screen’ button which could not be activated with the keyboard and JAWS.	Fail Controls cannot be activated with the keyboard and JAWS.	Pass The initial play button within the Flash movie did not have a label. Only after activating the HTML 'Play' link below the video module would the video begin playing and the user is able to access the other labels.	Fail Controls cannot be activated with the keyboard and JAWS.	Fail Controls cannot be activated with the keyboard and JAWS.
Totals	1	4	2	4	4

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Need some more information?

If you would like to learn more about how we can help you with accessibility testing and usability testing then please call us or email us below and we would be happy to help out where we can.

We are ready to answer your questions right now, so please contact us by telephone on +44 (0) 207 168 7526 or drop us a quick email info@spotlessinteractive.com and we will do our best to help you with any questions you might have.

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