Putting eAccessibility at the core of information systems

EPUB 3 – ebooks designed for allEPUB 3 – ebooks designed for all

Markus Gylling, CTO, IDPF & DAISY Consortium

26/03/2012, Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, Paris

mgylling@idpg.org

What is the International Digital What is the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)?Publishing Forum (IDPF)?

• Not for profit Trade and Standards organization with over 300 members from 35+ countries, working together to advance the Digital Publishing Ecosystem with open, interoperable standards

• Members include publishers, vendors, libraries, national associations, government and industry organizations

• Focus is EPUB digital publication format

http://www.idpf.org

2007- EPUB standardized

2008 - Assoc. Am. Pub. (AAP), UK Pub. Assoc. (PA) endorse

2009- Google: 1M PD EPUBs- Sony store to EPUB

2010- Apple iBooks- 25+ eReaders- 25+ smartphone apps- Most Kindle sales from titles ingested as EPUB- EPUB 2.0.1- EPUB 3 WG chartered

2011- EPUB 3.0 (October)- EBPAJ endorse

2012- Readium EPUB 3 Reader- Sub-projects:

- Fixed Layout- Indexes- Dictionaries- …

<Adoption TimelineAdoption Timeline>

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920022442.do

• Open, industry-driven e-book format standard• Builds on W3C web standards (XML, HTML5, SVG, …)• Is nature agnostic: usable for books, magazines, corporate

documents, ...• Includes rich layout, rich media and interactivity features• Has extensive accessibility support built-in…

<EPUB 3 in five bulletsEPUB 3 in five bullets>

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025283.do

Text-to-Speech Metadata

Structure and Semantics

Rich Navigation

Web Techniques (HTML5/WCAG)

Media Overlays

ARIA

<EPUB 3 accessibilityEPUB 3 accessibility>

The complete chain must be accessible:• production: authoring, print-first or digital creation• ebook: format and features• distribution interface (retail, library, etc.)• reading system design and features• assistive technology (AT) itself

<the complete chainthe complete chain>

• The DNA of your document: describes the data• Enables intelligent behaviors in reading systems• Facilitates access to content and simplifies navigation

HTML5/EPUB 3 improves the base vocabulary• section, aside, article• audio, video, canvas, figure• MathML, SVG

EPUB 3 adds annotation mechanism for domain- specific semantic inflection: epub:type

<structure and semanticsstructure and semantics>

<rich navigationrich navigation>

EPUB 3 includes the required and dedicated Navigation Document, which offers the following declarative navigation features:

•TOC navigation –navigate the main publication structure•Page navigation – navigate to positions corresponding to page boundaries in a print source (and the source publication can be identified using metadata)•Landmarks – navigate to fundamental recurring book components •Extensible for additional publication-specific navigation list types

EPUB3 includes DAISY-style synchronization of text with pre-recorded audio Bridges the gap between the audio book and the text-based ebook – lets the user

decide on modalities

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSYNy9x1lHk

<media overlaysmedia overlays>

EPUB 3 adds ability for producers to include pronunciation and prosody instructions:

PLS SSML CSS 3 Speech

Lexicons can be reused

<text-to-speech (TTS)text-to-speech (TTS)>

<interactivity and ARIAinteractivity and ARIA>

• Scripted content poses new challenges for usability and accessibility• EPUB 3 includes rules for script integration: progressive enhancement

• Accessibility/Usability features native to the HTML5 specification• W3C WAI/WCAG (http://www.w3.org/WAI/)

• By adoption of HTML5, EPUB 3 also includes support for W3C ARIA markup (http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/)• Provides state and property information to AT dynamically

<accessibility metadataaccessibility metadata>

• Facilitate discovery of accessible publications in delivery channels• New extension to ONIX to describe accessibility features of e-books

– codelist 196 – vocabulary for description of accessibility of an e-publication

– works with ONIX 2.1 and ONIX 3– process in place for revision and extension

• ONIX records can be referenced from EPUB 3 publications and embedded within them

http://www.editeur.org/

<inclusive publishinginclusive publishing>

EPUB 3: a state-of-the art foundation for inclusive e-publishing

• Design for Usability – target all users• Sound authoring practices and basic HTML5/WCAG Techniques

will often be all you need for accessible outputUse XHTML5 elements properly - structure and semanticsDo not use bitmap images to convey informationUse EPUB 3 semantic inflection where necessaryUse basic Web HTML5/WCAG techniques

• Scripted content needs extra attentionUse with care, and utilize ARIA techniques

• Add Media Overlays for a rich multimodal experience for everyone, get the accessibility benefits for free

• For academic books in particular, include TTS features• Make use of accessibility metadata in retail channels

<moving forward moving forward (2012-2013)>

• EPUB 3 Best Practices, continued

• Accessible EPUB 3 content: • condensed online checklists• accessibility evaluation tool

• Accessible EPUB 3 reading systems: implementation guidelines• Readium: open source reading system reference implementation

• Inclusive authoring solutions• accessibility features in mainstream authoring tools• interactive widgets: reusable libraries

<links and further readinglinks and further reading>

EPUB 3 Specification http://idpf.org/epub/30

IDPF current activities http://www.idpf.org/ongoing

IDPF Forums http://www.idpf.org/forums

EPUB 3 Samples http://code.google.com/p/epub-samples/

Readium project http://readium.org/

W3C WAI WCAG http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

W3C WAI ARIA http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-primer/

ONIX and codelist 193 http://www.editeur.org

Functional criteria for e-book accessibility

http://wac.osu.edu/ebook-access-overview/