Video Coding

A systematic research method in which trained analysts review video recordings to identify, label, and categorise specific behaviours, actions, emotions, or events. In accessibility and usability research, video coding is used to analyse recordings of user testing sessions to extract insights about how people interact with technology — for example, identifying moments of confusion, navigation difficulties, or workaround strategies used by people with disabilities. Traditional video coding is time-intensive, often requiring 5-10 times the duration of the original video, which has led to explorations of crowdsourced and automated approaches. Video coding captures subtle behavioural signals that automated accessibility testing tools cannot detect, making it a valuable complement to code-level evaluation methods.