YouTube brings improvements to its app by introducing the features of Video Chapters and automatically translated captions

By: Lim Teck Seng

Photo: YouTube official blog 

In order to improve content searches, YouTube made an announcement at its official blog that there will be two updates to help users find the video content they are looking for more quickly. The first update is that YouTube will add Video Chapters and Preview features to its app.

Previously, viewers have been able to see a thumbnail image if they hovered over the video progress bar when watching YouTube on desktop.

Now on the YouTube app, if creators use Timestamps to divide the video content into chapters, there will be a column underneath the title displaying full chapter list, where clicking on it leads to the thumbnail images of every chapter, making it more convenient for viewers to jump directly to the section they are interested in. In addition, when users are scrolling through YouTube homepage, the Autoplay feature enables them to preview the video content before having to decide whether to tap on it.

The second update is that YouTube will recommend the videos with translated captions in the user’s local language. For instance, if a Thai speaker could not find any Quantum Physics tutorial delivered in Thai language, then YouTube will recommend the tutorials from other languages, as well as automatically translate and generate Thai captions for the videos.