Ask the accessibility expert, 24 September 2024

Topic: Accessible reading experiences 

In this session host Katie Durand and accessibility experts Miia Kirsi and Kirsi Ylänne from the Celia Library in Finland dive into what makes an accessible reading experience for readers with print disabilities. The presentation is based on the questions that were submitted beforehand by the participants of the session. 

Summary of the presentation 

Miia first provides a short explanation what we mean by print disabilities, assistive technology and accessibility features. It is clear that accessibility features are not only used by people with a print disability, but by everyone. If the e-book is accessible, it can be read in multiple ways: with the eyes or the ears or with hands. It is important to understand that if you want the reading experience to be truly accessible, everyone included in the ecosystem needs to do their part: publishers, online bookstores, reading system developers, libraries and readers. 

Based on three video’s, Kirsi explains what actions can be taken by the reader, the publisher and the reading system and software developers in order to create an accessible reading experience. 

• Visual adjustments: adjustment of text size, colour and contrast. A responsive text is advised, because the text dynamically adjusts to fit within the available space. An EPUB3 e-book can do this. 

• Good navigation possibilities. For someone using assistive technology such as a screen reader a good table of contents is essential to understanding what's in the title and how it's organized. The Table of contents with chapters and subheadings is like adding a superpower useful for everyone, but especially for those with print disabilities. Besides providing an orientation to the publication, the table of contents can be used to jump straight to a specific part of the book. 

• The use of Read Aloud. Read Aloud is a feature often included in reading apps on computers, tablets, smartphones, and websites. It is a feature that helps especially people with dyslexia, where persons with a visual impairment make use of screen readers more often. Some Read Aloud functions also convey the alt text to users, if that option is chosen. So you don't necessarily need a separate screenreader to access alt text. And people who are struggling to understand what they see in the images, or have a learning disabilities could get help from alt text via Read Aloud. So it's not just visually impaired persons who can benefit from alt text. 

Questions and answers 

How can publishers ensure that accessibility features in mainstream e-books work smoothly with different assistive technologies? 

Use the international standards. It would be impossible to test with all the different combinations of operating systems, different reading systems and software, together with different assistive technologies. When an e-book complies with the standard, for example, EPUB standard, the assistive technology will be able to use the semantic markup of the e-book. 

What are important standards and specifications to rely on for creating accessible e-books? 

• the latest EPUB standards: EPUB 3.3 and EPUB Accessibility, 1.1 

• PDF UA/2 (UA stands for universal accessibility).  

• WCAG 2.2. 

• EPUB Fixed Layout Accessibility Document (work in progress).  

There are separate specifications for EPUB reading software: 

• EPUB reading software 3.3  

• WCAG 2.2 

It is the responsibility of the developers of the assistive technology to make sure that there is support for the latest operating systems and specifications like HTML, WCAG and WAI ARIA. 

When all the contributors in the production and distribution chain follow the same standards, the reading experience can be made accessible. 

What is the difference between a screen reader and Read Aloud? 

Read Aloud uses text-to-speech (TTS) technology. TTS technology converts written text into spoken words. It’s typically used to provide audio feedback in apps, narrate e-books out loud, create audio versions of written content. One of the key differences between TTS and a screen reader is their customization options. Most TTS software lets users choose from a variety of voices and adjust the tone of the speech. Screen readers offer a much wider range of personalization options, including the ability to adjust the narrator’s voice and speech rate, punctuation, language, and much more. 

How are fixed layout e-books experienced by print disabled readers? 

First of all, if the fixed layout e-book is done really well (i.e. it has a good reading order, and it works with assistive technology) a print disabled person who is blind and uses a screen reader can access it. They may not even know that it's a fixed layout book, because they get the content in the right order, and then they can navigate in the content quite well. 

However, when it comes to the visual adjustments, and if if a reader finds it easier to read with the different paragraph width, or if they want to enlarge the font, they will not be able to change this in a fixed layout e-book. 

We also recognize that there will be need for some fixed layout e-books, for example e-books about typography or art. But we hope that it is used only when there is a good reason for it. 

What is the role of specialized libraries with complex publications? 

We believe that there will remain work for them also. There will be books that even though they are e-books, they are maybe in fixed layout and therefore not so accessible. So special libraries will continue to produce those very difficult books into more accessible formats. And when persons with print disabilities don't find the accessible format in the commercial market they can turn to the specialized libraries. 

Are mathematical formulas interpreted the same way by MathML code and reading systems?  

There is a project called MathCAT (Math, capable assistive technology). The aim is to make sure that MathML will be read aloud correctly. But also there is building support for braille displays. 

There was a good presentation about MathCAT on MathCAT at the Digital Publishing Summit 2024. 

What are useful reading apps? 

• Thorium Reader by EDRLab. Available for PC, Mac and Linux computers. It is open source and it's available in many languages. 

• Colibrio Reader. There is also a browser version: Vanilla Reader.  

• Native software on mobile devices, like Apple IBooks or Google Playbooks. 

If you don't want an artificial voice, can you choose among different voices, maybe a more natural voice? 

There has been amazing progress with the AI voices and voice cloning. If we wait a couple of years, there will be really good artificial voices. We have to keep up with the technology and look what kind of developments there will be in the near future. 

Is it possible to give a notice to a publisher if you come across an ebook that's not access accessible, if yes, how can you do this? 

The first thing is to contact the shop where you bought the e-book. This might be the online shop. But if you know who the publisher is, you can go to the publisher’s website and look for an accessibility statement. They might even list contact details to ask them for an accessible version. And if nothing else helps and when the European Accessibility Act is enforced, there is a supervisory authority you van contact and make a complaint that a certain e-book wasn't accessible.