At the London Book Fair, held in March, almost all the buzz was about AI and accessibility. Accessibility is a complicated topic, involving print and digital.  This article addresses the digital side of the equation.    

Why now?

ePubs have been around since (believe it or not) September 11, 2006.  Since that time, accessibility features have slowly been added to the files and the reader apps.  That trend got a strong push on June 27, 2019 with the passage of The European Accessibility Act (EAA).  The EAA establishes accessibility requirements for different types of products and services uniformly across all EU member countries. It strengthens the rights of people with disabilities by providing access to products and services, including e-books, dedicated e-reading devices and software, digital rights management software, and e-commerce.  It goes into effect on June 28, 2025.  For book publishers, that means that all reflowable epubs published on or after that date, must meet the AA accessibility requirements.  For epubs published prior to that date, there is a 5-year grace period, meaning ALL epubs on sale in EU countries must be compliant by June 27, 2030.  Fixed layout epubs, the standard format for children’s picture books and other image-heavy books such as recipe books and travel guides, are exempt from these requirements.

What is accessibility?

Accessibility is the integration of information into digital books, which helps visually impaired and blind readers read the contents of the book as fully as possible.  Accessibility features are hidden/cached information in the digital book. They are partially processed by epub reader apps, called screen readers. The information lets the reader know what kind of media the digital book contains: text, images, sound, audio.... before purchasing the book. If a book contains something that flashes or pulsates, it is important to convey that information, as some people may have an adverse reaction such as an epileptic seizure. If an image is considered necessary for understanding the work, text describing it is embedded in the image (called alternative text or alt-text) and read by the screen reader.

What is a screen reader?

A screen reader is an assistive technology that converts text, buttons, images and other screen elements into speech or braille. Some are included with the device and others are stand-alone apps. Many of the reading apps and stand-alone screen readers will be improved over the next few years to enable them to use all the available information in the metadata. Some examples:

Apple devices (iOS) have a built-in screen reader, called VoiceOver, that will read the contents of your screen, with multiple voice and accent options.  Apple’s Speak Screen is an additional accessibility tool for readers with a mild visual impairment.

TalkBack by Google is the Android equivalent to VoiceOver.  However, while VoiceOver is consistent across all Apple Devices, TalkBack’s features and controls vary, depending on the device manufacturer using Android.

There are multiple independent screen reader apps available on the market, some with advanced features, ranging from free to around $1200.  JAWS, the most popular, provides many advanced navigation tools and speech and Braille output for most computer applications, but only on PC devices. 

Accessibility validation

In the US, there is no official government agency that validates epub files for accessibility, such as the FAA certification for airplanes or passing the mandatory DMV inspection for your car.   There are several organizations that offer “certification” for epub producers and sellers, including non-profits Benetech and the Daisy Consortium. Benetech certification includes a thorough review of the production process and costs thousands of dollars per year.  The Daisy Consortium, in contrast, offers a free online tool to validate that an epub is accessible.

At Nord Compo, headquartered in northern France, we produce accessible epubs according to a technical chart written by the standards normalization group of the French publishers. It follows Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) level AA recommendations, the standard (middle) level for epubs. It specifies the technical elements to be followed to obtain a Natively Accessible (NAC) epub. All of our accessible epubs are validated by Ace, the online validation tool by the DAISY Consortium, which is a free, open source EPUB accessibility checking tool which has been created to assist in the evaluation of conformance to the EPUB Accessibility Specification. All the epubs we produce are also validated by ePubCheck, Amazon’s Kindle Previewer and Apple’s Amazon’s Transporter.

Who should be paying attention?

Publishers who produce epubs. 
Online bookstores will have to be accessible and will have to display some accessibility information about the books.
Reading software apps will have to use the accessibility information included in the metadata and in the epubs.

What needs to be included in the Accessibility metadata?

While this appears to be a simple question, today there are no easy answers. As of this writing, the BISG Workflow and Metadata committees are working on this issue, as are many other organizations (i.e. Daisy Consortium, Royal National Institute for the Blind) and publishers’ production departments.  The metadata can be part of the epub itself and can also be included in the ONIX feed.  This is an evolving issue on which we can expect periodic updates. 

At a minimum, the metadata will include:  

• The table of contents, table of pages (reference to the pages of the print version).

• The accessibility level of the digital book, as defined by the publisher, which should always be AA.

• Access modes (type of content): ability to read (text), view (images), sound and video.

• A statement of the presence or absence of high-risk elements: animations; flashing lights; sound systems; etc.

These metadata will later be used by bookstores to display the title's accessibility features, or as search filters.

What are some of the other specifications for epub accessibility? 

Aria tagging:  ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a standard vocabulary of tags that, once embedded in HTML epub files, define the editorial levels such as foreword, acknowledgment, dedication, preface, introduction, chapter, etc., as well as specific elements such as notes, callouts, indexes, etc.

HTML table of contents: ePubs need a summary or table of contents as a page integrated into the ePub reading flow in addition to the navigation bookmarks used by the reading app’s or screen reader's table of contents function. 

Print equivalent tags: A marker or tag is placed in the text at each location corresponding to the start of a page in the printed edition, which, in screen readers, allows you to display the pagination of the printed edition or to go to the content corresponding to a page of the printed edition.  This can be important for students’ course materials.  For digital only titles, we generate a virtual pagination based on the quantity of characters per page.

Sections and chapter titles: Titles of sections, chapters, forewords, appendices… can be composed of several lines: a number; a title; a subtitle; etc. All these elements must be grouped together in a single HTML element, H1 or H2, etc.

Color contrasts: Be careful with halftone backgrounds or colored characters, as some colors should be avoided. A high level of contrast between the text and the background is required.

Emoticons: These can be processed by using specific characters of the text font or of a specific font, or as images.  There are around 2,000 emoticons, most of them are not available in the usual fonts. At Nord Compo, we process them as images with a short alt text description (we use a standard list).  This avoids font problems and keeps the digital rendering identical to the print version.

Mathematical formulas: These must be coded in the ePub in MathML, the XML markup specific to mathematical formulas, and with an image of the formula for readers that don't support MathML.

Images and illustrations:  Photos, illustrations, maps, plans, flow charts, diagrams, scanned documents should be categorized as either informative (necessary for a complete understanding of the book) or decorative.  Informative images must have a text description (alt-text) in either the short version, limited to 120 characters or if needed for clarity, the long description version, which has no limit.  Alt-text can be prepared by the publisher (we provide an excel template with a list of the images for which alt-text is needed) and is integrated inside the epub.  Nord Compo offers the service of composing these alt-text descriptions for publishers.

Tables: If tables are processed as images in the epub, alternative information must be added which can be an HTML version of the table; a simplified multi-level list; or an alt-text description of the table.

For more information, contact:
Laurence Bennett, Executive Director, North America, Nord Compo
lbennett@nordcompo.com or 1-917-656-9838
www.nordcompo.com