Designing Audio for Everyone on the Web

Audio is, by definition, an exclusionary medium for some listeners. Good audio products close that gap. Here is the checklist I work from.

Transcripts are not optional

Every episode should ship with a transcript. It serves people who are deaf or hard of hearing, it is searchable, and it is the single biggest SEO win an audio site can make. Search engines cannot listen, but they can read.

The player itself

1. Every control reachable by keyboard, in a sensible tab order.
2. A visible focus style that is never removed.
3. Icon buttons that carry real labels for screen readers.
4. A seek bar that announces its position as you scrub.
5. Status changes (play, pause, track change) announced politely.

Respect the person, not just the spec

Meeting WCAG is the floor. The goal is an experience that feels considered: motion that can be turned off, contrast that holds up in sunlight, text that scales when someone bumps their font size. Accessibility done well is just good design with the edge cases taken seriously.