uTheory is Closed Captioned

(And other accessibility improvements.)

Yesterday we launched closed captioning for all of uTheory’s videos — that’s nearly three hundred videos in total!

In addition to users who are hard of hearing, we know this will be welcomed by international students as well as those of us who forgot a pair of headphones when we’re trying to learn music theory in a coffee shop.

We’ve also added a visual metronome to rhythm reading exercises, in the form of a politely flashing blue bar, to make it possible to complete these without audio as well.

Alt Tags for Musical Notation

All of our musical notation has had “alt” tags for years, but we’ve improved the readability of this for screen readers significantly:

• Notes with accidentals now are spelled out “B-flat” and “F-sharp”
• Rhythms are written out “dotted-eighth” instead of the prior code-word-like “8.”
• Selections of particular notes are now noted in the alt text, for instance “quarter-note C4-Selected: E4-G4” to make it easier for low-vision or blind users to use keyboard navigation of exercises

These are just a two of many improvements we’re working on to make uTheory more accessible to everyone.