Footnotes and endnotes are a relevant part of the content of a document. Therefore it is important that they are accessible and usable for screenreader users in a similar quick and easy way as for sighted users. In this presentation we discuss 3 possible solutions.

1. Screen Reader Accessible Footnotes in PDF Documents –
between High Flying Standards and Grounded Features of
Available Assistive Technologies
Markus Erle (Wertewerk) / Samuel Hofer (xyMedia)
13th International Conference, ICCHP 2012 - Linz, Austria, July 2012

2. Agenda
1. Starting Point
2. Our Approach and Results
3. The Impact and Future Work

3. 1.
Starting Point

4. Are Notes really important?
• Footnotes and endnotes are a relevant part of the
content of a document
• Therefore it is important that they are accessible and
usable for screenreader users in a similar quick and
easy way as for sighted users

5. The problems for screenreader users are ...
• to be able to turn off note references on a document
level
• to identify the note references and the note
• to have the decision to read the note or not
(on an object level)
• to access the content of a note directly from the note
referer
• to go back to the content flow after reading the note

6. The Conflict
• on the one hand: requirements based on
accessibility standards – like the PDF reference (ISO
32000-1) and the new PDF accessibility standard PDF/
UA (ISO 14289-1)
• on the other hand: the real-life accessibility for
users of screen readers that do not support these
standards yet

7. 2.
Our Approach and Results

8. Evaluation of available solutions
• By cooperating with the accessibility experts of the
foundation “Access for all” we could test the real life
accessibiliy of the available solutions (Microsoft Office /
Libre Office / Adobe InDesign)
• All solutions caused severe accessibility or usability
problems for screen reader users.
• In summary the problems are:
• how to identify the note reference and the note
• the place of the note in the tag tree (inline, separate
block level element)
• how it is possible for a screen reader user to jump
back to the note reference

9. Evaluation of available solutions
• By cooperating with the accessibility experts of the
foundation “Access for all” we could test the real life
accessibiliy of the available solutions (Microsoft Office /
Libre Office / Adobe InDesign)
• All solutions caused severe accessibility or usability
3 possible solutions
problems for screen reader users.
• In summary the problems are:
to make it better!
• how to identify the note reference and the note
• the place of the note in the tag tree (inline, separate
block level element)
• how it is possible for a screen reader user to jump
back to the note reference

10. Solution A: Theoretical Best Practice
according to PDF/UA
• ISO standard delivers only basic preconditions
• possible implementation: note tag as an inline element
replaces the note reference
• every note has a unique ID
•+
• conforms to PDF/UA
• very elegant
•-
• no AT support yet

11. Solution A: Theoretical Best Practice
according to PDF/UA
• ISO standard delivers only basic preconditions
• possible implementation: note tag as an inline element
replaces the note reference
• This will be the
every note has a unique ID
•+
•
solution in future.
conforms to PDF/UA
• very elegant
•-
• no AT support yet

12. Solution B: Real Life Compromise
• All Footnotes as a numbered list
• heading „list of endnotes“
• link from the reference to the note
• back link from the end of the note to the reference
•+
• fully accessible and usable
•-
• test users were astonished at the first time

13. Solution B: Real Life Compromise
• All Footnotes as a numbered list
• heading „list of endnotes“
• link from the reference to the note the
This end of thebe to the reference
will note
• back link from the
• + present solution.
• fully accessible and usable
•-
• test users were astonished at the first time

14. Solution C: Footnotes as Simple Inline Elements
(lean version of A)
•+
• as the note replaces the reference there is no
problem any more to „jump“ from the reference to
the note
•-
• annoying: user cannot choose to read the note or not
• confusing: the end of a note is not clear
• time consuming: you have to do the work manually
(as post-processing)

15. Solution C: Footnotes as Simple Inline Elements
(lean version of A)
•+
• as the note replaces the reference there is no
problem any more to „jump“ from the reference to
the note
•- Very bad
• annoying:compromise.the note or not
user cannot choose to read
• confusing: the end of a note is not clear
• time consuming: you have to do the work manually
(as post-processing)

16. Evaluation
• blind experts from the foundation „Access for All“
evaluated our solution
• Results
• „The proposed solution enables that screenreader
user can decide whether they want to read the
content of a note or not“
• „The link in order to jump from the note referer
to the content of the note and the link back to the
note referer guide the screenreader user in a clear
and easy way“

17. 3.
The Impact and Future Work

18. How can authors implement Solution B into their
documents?
• will be implemented in the final version of the Word-
Add-In axesPDF for Word (for Word 2007 and Word
2010)
• it will even support Solution A

19. Thank you!
Feel free to ask questions!
www.axespdf.com/try