Hey @hillyfov,
Welcome to Kadence Support! That’s a great question, and I’m happy to help you with this.
The background video feature in the Row Layout block is designed mainly for decorative purposes, kind of like a moving background image. It’s not meant to deliver important content or informative messaging, so things like captions or transcripts aren’t built in or typically required. The sound features were added as a request, but the intention of the Row Layout Block is not to be a true video player.
- For example, you can view in this document that the Video feature for the Row Layout Background is for visual purposes and not intended to be used as a full on video-player. I’ve also added additional clarification in our documentation to help prevent future confusion, such as here.
You’re right to bring up WCAG. Those guidelines do require alternatives like captions or transcripts, but mostly for videos that include needed audio or convey meaningful information. If your background video is muted and purely visual (like a scenic clip or subtle animation), then it’s not considered informative media and doesn’t fall under the same accessibility requirement.
However, if your video does show something that has meaning,like a process, or visuals that support your message, it’s important to include that info in a true video player. You could also add informative videos to things like the Video Popup Block. When using a YouTube URL inside of a Video Popup Block, users can access the video and use the Video Player caption settings to get captions of the video.
- You can learn more about the Video Popup Block here. We have recently added new features to this block, such as video posters and mobile-ratios.
- The Text (Adv) Block also supports adding screen-reader texts to your website. This is a newer feature, and could be useful in your case. You can learn more here.
- If you think this should be a feature of the Row Layout Background, you can consider submitting an official Feature Request here. We often implement popular requests into our products.
I hope this was helpful to you. Please let me know if I can further help.
Victor
Thank you for clarification, Victor!
I won’t submit a feature request because I am with you on this topic and I understand that purely decorative videos that don’t convey essential information do not need to have a transcript.
