Teaching and Learning Resource Center

Accessibility & Playing Mediasite Presentations

Mediasite's functionality is available using keyboard shortcuts and screen readers, in particular, via the screen reader interface.

Some functionality, such as Polls and Question & Answers, cannot be utilized by screen reader users.

Screen Reader-Specific Functionality

Enable the screen reader accessible interface controls by using Ctrl + z

Once in the screen reader accessible interface, you will find a description of the video above the video playback controls, including: a list of presenters, a description of the video, the date and time it was posted, and its length in minutes and seconds.

Below the description, button controls allow for playing and pausing the video, skipping back by three seconds, increasing and decreasing the playback speed (without overly distorting the audio), and adjusting the volume.

Below the button controls is a list of slides. Clicking any slide will jump to that moment in the video.

There are some limitations to what slide descriptions can provide. To make the experience better for those using assistive technology, presenters must be as descriptive as possible when referring to presentation support materials. For example, presenters should describe the content of each slide or at least make it clear that they are describing the slide at some point in the audio and indicate slide changes. Additional considerations are available from the Mediasite knowledge base article: Using screen readers with Mediasite 6.x

When the video is set to play or pause, the screen reader announces the play state. Likewise, skipping backward in the video or moving around via the chapter button announces the current time position of the video. It is also possible to find the text that describes the current position in the video in hours, minutes, and seconds, by navigating upward from the play/pause button.

If the video presentation has chapters or presentation links (links to information associated with the presentation), these will appear in lists below the slide list.

Putting the screen reader into a pass through mode will allow screen reader users to use the arrow keys to skip back and forward though the video at 3 second increments.

Primary Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Space bar = toggle play/pause
  • left/right arrow keys = "scrub"/skip by 3 seconds back/forth in the video
  • Ctrl + left/right arrow keys = skip back and forth between slides
  • Shift + c = toggle captions open/close
  • m = mute audio
  • Ctrl + up/down arrow keys = increase/decrease volume
  • up/down arrow keys = increase or decrease the video playback speed (without distorting the video's audio)
  • f = open the caption/slide text search function

Note that it is not possible to select a returned result solely via the keyboard. Users must use the mouse for that operation.

Other Keyboard Shortcuts

For a more comprehensive list, please refer to the Mediasite knowledge base article: Mediasite 6.x keyboard shortcuts

  • c = view chapters, if available
  • l = view links, if available
  • p = view polls, if available
  • a = ask a question, if enabled
  • s = toggle slide show/slide list, if available
  • Shift + s = toggle slide image and slide text, if available

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