in the trenches with accessible epub - charles lapierre - ebookcraft 2017

In the Trenches with Accessible EPUB Tales from the Publishing Front Lines

Charles LaPierre, Technical Lead DIAGRAM and Born Accessible

Standards at the Core of Accessibility

●  World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – HTML 5, CSS, ARIA, SVG, MathML

●  Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) ●  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG

2.0) ●  International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)

– http://www.idpf.org/ – EPUB the digital publishing standard built on Web

technologies (i.e. HTML5, CSS, ARIA, etc…) – EPUB Accessibility Conformance and Discovery

1.0 Specification

●  For the last three years the W3C has run a Digital Publishing Interest Group –  I was the co-chair of the Accessibility Task Force

●  The merger has placed EPUB under the domain of W3C

IDPF and W3C Merger

●  Adoption of EPUB 3 has been outstanding in most digital publishing sectors

●  EPUB 3.1 is an approved recommendation –  http://www.idpf.org/epub/31/spec/epub-spec.html

●  Included is EPUB Accessibility 1.0 –  http://www.idpf.org/epub/a11y/accessibility.html

●  Conformance and Discovery Requirements for EPUB Publications

●  First ever spec to enable accessibility certification –  This establishes the baseline

●  Important: We want to be practical in that publishers should readily be able to produce accessible EPUB from their normal production process

EPUB within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

●  The Digital Publishing Interest Group in the W3C has produced an ARIA 1.1 module to help add some Digital Publishing semantics to ARIA

●  Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.0 –  https://www.w3.org/TR/dpub-aria-1.0/

●  This is currently under review and has not yet been adopted as a recommendation

●  Sample of the proposed new Roles: –  doc-abstract –  doc-appendix –  doc-chapter –  doc-introduction

W3C DPUB’s ARIA 1.1 Module

●  Requires accessibility conformance in the EPUB publication

●  Builds on WCAG 2.0 with some additional publishing-specific items

●  in the USA WCAG 2.0 “AA” is generally recommended ●  “conforms To” metadata pointing to “A,” “AA,” or “AAA”

Accessibility metadata must be included

Interestingly: publishers have actively participated in the EPUB Accessibility Spec development and have been updating their production process to support accessibility.

Baseline Features

●  All headings must be marked in the HTML as headings (Critical for navigation)

●  All textual content must use HTML text markup, e.g., paragraphs, block quotes, list items

●  All content must be in a logical reading order ●  Images are marked as decorative, described in

surrounding text or captions, or have “alt” text ●  If you want a fancy heading and use an image, remember

to surround the image with the heading markup and use alt text (remember you can do very cool things these days with CSS)

Concrete Examples of Some MUSTS

Metadata Requirements to Be Compliant ●  EPUBs wishing to be conformant MUST:

–  include accessibility discovery metadata –  include the following [schema.org] accessibility

metadata •  accessMode •  accessibilityFeature •  accessibilityHazard •  accessibilitySummary

●  Certify that digital books (and all other publications) meet the Baseline

●  Self-certification –  Sad Story: What happened to Voluntary Product

Accessibility Template (VPAT)? –  Would you have a fox guard the henhouse? –  DAISY is building the EPUB Accessibility Conformance

Checker •  Can only test 20-30%

–  Auto checking must be supplemented by human inspection

Accelerating Publisher Adoption: Certification of EPUB Publications

●  Accessibility metadata required to be present in the EPUB package

●  Accessibility metadata supports •  Born accessible •  Find accessible •  Buy Accessible

Accelerating Publisher Adoption: Conformance and Certification of EPUB Publications

Born Accessible: Certified by Benetech

●  Benetech is piloting the certification process ●  A documented process for certification must

be established and followed ●  Publisher materials are reviewed and

remediated ●  Long term process improvements would be

recommended to publishers

Find Accessible: Certification Metadata

●  How to find certified content in the future: –  certifiedBy: Specifies the name of the party that

certified the content. The certifier of the content could be the same party that created the EPUB publication, but can also be a third-party accessibility certifier.

–  certifierCredential: Identifies a credential or badge that establishes the authority of the party identified in the certifiedBy property to certify content is accessible.

–  certifierReport: Provides a link to an accessibility report created by the party identified in the certifiedBy property.

–  conformsTo: the Baseline and WCAG-A, -AA, or -AAA

Buy Accessible: Certified Accessible Content

●  Procurement MUST focus on “Buy Accessible” ●  “Buy Accessible” - Demand Certified Accessible

EPUB3 by third party credentialed agencies. ●  All content must be certified. Point them to

“Certified by Benetech” initiative.

Benetech Pilot – EPUB Accessibility Certification

●  Currently working with Macmillan Learning and other publishers, as well as a conversion vendor

●  In depth evaluations of multiple EPUB books from each

●  Generate a detailed accessibility report for each title

Sample Pilot: Summary

Title: Road Runner - Not a Myth Publisher: Acme Inc. Author(s): Wiley Coyote Sr. Package Metadata (Required): FAIL Page and Publication: FAIL Page Navigation: PASS Media Overlays Playback: FAIL Overall 1.0 Compliant: FAIL Born Accessible Score: 25.5% Overall WCAG Compliance Reached: FAIL EPUB Complexity Score: 5 - Very Complex

Sample Pilot: Born Accessible Scores Image Accessibility: 39% WCAG FAIL

Audio Accessibility: 22% WCAG FAIL

Video Accessibility: 0% WCAG FAIL

HTML Tags: 29% WCAG FAIL

General Accessibility: 29% WCAG FAIL

Language: 50% WCAG Level-A Structured Navigation: 17% WCAG FAIL

Links: 50% WCAG Level-A Lists: 50% WCAG FAIL

Tables: 0% WCAG FAIL

Notes: 67% WCAG Level-A Java Script: 0% WCAG FAIL

MathML: 0%

Package Metadata (Optional):50%

DPUB ARIA (Future): N/A

Born Accessible Total Score 25.5%

Accessibility Pilot Results

Image Accessibility - Feedback Given

●  Decorative Images –  The fancy images that are placed at the start of each chapter have

alt=“image.” This should instead be alt=“”, and be marked as role=“presentational” and as an added safety aria-hidden=“true”. Technically you should only need role=“presentational” but not all reading systems honor both so having both will ensure that the image won’t be announced to the assistive technology.

●  Longer descriptions –  There are 13 complex images – graphs and text-as-image – with

no descriptions.

General Accessibility - Feedback

●  Landmarks –  There are no epub:type semantics (eg: chapter, titlepage,

footnotes, …)

●  Color-Contrast –  Color contrast Level AA 4.5 : 1 or AAA 7 : 1

●  Inline Styling –  Use of and used instead of 

●  Page Lists –  There are pages marked but no page lists given should also

include metadata dc:source declared in OPF file

Table – Feedback

●  Table headings marked –  No Table Headers marked (First row and/or first column usually is

a header and must be indicated as such to help assistive technology automatically announce the header as the user moves around the table.)

●  Table summary added for complex tables –  Complex tables should have a Table Summary, consider adding a

summary for the more complicated tables.

●  Not used for fixed or presentational content –  A table was used in the appendix purely for presentational layout,

use CSS styling instead.

Extended Image Descriptions : Current Solution

Using aria-describedby pointing to a hidden Fig Caption - Aside <figure>

<img src=" pythagorean.jpg " aria-describedby="pyth-details" alt=“Pythagorean Theorem”/>

<figcaption>

Figure 1.0 Example of Pythagorean Theorem

<aside class="hidden" id="pyth-details">

 The Pythagorean Theorem is a relationship in Euclidean Geometry

between the three sides of a right triangle, where the square of the

hypotenuse is the sum of the squares of the two opposing sides.

 c2 =a2 + b2 

</aside>

</figcaption>

</figure>

Extended Description: Future Solution

ARIA 1.1 : aria-details The aria-details attribute references a single element that provides more detailed information than would normally be provided by aria-describedby. It enables assistive technologies to make users aware of the availability of an extended description as well as navigate to and within it. <img src="pythagorean.jpg" alt="Pythagorean Theorem" aria-details=”pyth-details”/>

<details id="pyth-details"> <summary>Example of Pythagorean Theorem</summary> The Pythagorean Theorem is a relationship in Euclidean Geometry between the three sides of a right triangle, where the square of the hypotenuse is the sum of the squares of the two opposing sides. c2 =a2 + b2 

</details>

Table Markup ●  Tables is one area which has some accessibility concerns <table summary=“Here we have our lunch menu which showcases a Salads, Entrées and Desserts.”>

<caption>Today's Lunch Menu</caption> <tr>

<th>Salad</th>

<th>Entree</th> <th>Dessert</th>

</tr> <tr>

<td>Caesar</td>

<td>Chicken Divan</td> <td>Chocolate Mousse</td>

</tr> … </table>

Current State of Math ML ●  DIAGRAM Center currently working on a solution ●  Separate workflows that can or cannot support JS ●  Javascript can be used to make either the

MathML the primary and the Image as a backup or vice versa

●  If Javascript is not available, or must be removed the default will be an image with an alt description and have the mathML either removed or hidden.

●  mathmlcloud.org has APIs that given MathML, AsciiMath or Latex can obtain SVG, PNG, MathML and Alt description.

Publishers Perspective

Process is Everything

Publisher’s processes are at the heart of the Certification

How we Integrated New Standards

●  Get involved in working groups – it’s a chance to share your solutions and learn from others

●  Standards groups provided specifications but it was up to us to develop implementation guides based on our needs –  V1 took 6 months to build –  updates are coming out every 2-3 months based on feedback

●  Developed a validator based on open source resources and our implementation guide –  Update with every implementation guide update

●  Established a checklist for non-automated QA and educated team members on what to look for

Sharing Responsibility

●  Art – Develop all art to have proper contrast, readable text ●  Design – Ensure read order is clearly indicated ●  Authors – Provide guidance about pedagogical intention

for digital conversion ●  Editors – Communicate with authors about focus and

development ●  Compositor – Apply publisher standards, give feedback on

gaps ●  Quality Assurance – Automated and manual checking of

everything developed

Addressing Complexity

●  Text with markup ●  Complex image layouts ●  Marginal elements

–  Texts contain a large quantity of pedagogical material in the margin

●  MathML –  Reader compatibility is not standard –  Expensive and difficult to write alt text (mathMLcloud.org)

●  ChemML –  Reader compatibility is rare

–  Expensive and difficult to write alt text

●  Graphic Novel –  All image text

Why Are We Doing This?

●  ‘Certified by Benetech’ advantages –  3rd party confirmation of accessibility standards –  Assurance for students and adopters –  Easy to roll up to administrators –  Gives us feedback to pass on to vendors about the

quality of their work –  Provides internal confidence about the quality of what

we’re delivering –  Helps identify for schools what errors are addressed

and what warnings are relevant –  Most importantly: Shows us what we’re missing and

what we have left to learn

EPUB Accessibility 1.0 (Specification) EPUB Accessibility Techniques 1.0 (Supplemental) WCAG 2.0 (Specification) BISG: Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing

DIAGRAM Center: Image Description Guidelines Poet Image Description Training Module

Helpful Resources for Publishers

THANK YOU

Questions?

Charles LaPierre E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @CLaPierreA11Y Skype: charles_lapierre

in the trenches with accessible epub - charles lapierre - ebookcraft 2017

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