Matt Garrish's presentation slides from a session: “eBooks for Everyone: LIA Project, Accessible Publishing Guidelines, EpubCheck and More” at BookExpo America held in New York City June 6th, 2012.

1. e -B o o k s f o r E v e r y o n e
In c lu s iv e P u b lis h in g a n d E P U B
3
In t h e M o v e f r o m P r in t t o D ig it a l

2. Tr a d it io n a l b e n e f it s
Print Disability
A person who cannot effectively read print because
of a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental,
cognitive, or learning disability. (George Kerscher)
Age-Related Difficulties
21% of people over the age of 50 experience severe
vision, hearing or dexterity problems (EU research)

3. R e f r a m in g t h e Is s u e
Situational Disabilities
Temporary inability to
interact with the content
in the reader’s preferred
modality
Digital gives all readers the freedom to choose
Read how you want when you want

4. E n t e r In c lu s iv e P u b lis h in g
• Ebooks are disrupting traditional publishing models –
chance to rebuild with accessibility in mind
• Open standards with engrained accessibility benefit
all
• Retrofitting accessibility is rarely possible and never
effective
• Design workflows to integrate accessibility as early as
possible
The future is now…

5. D A IS Y t o E P U B 3 - E v o lu t io n
DAISY EPUB 2 EPUB 3
Structure DTBook HTML4 or DTBook HTML5
Semantics N/A N/A epub:type
Modalities SMIL text+audio N/A Media Overlays
N/A N/A Video
Navigation NCX/NCC NCX Navigation Document
Interactivity N/A N/A Forms+Scripting+ARIA
TTS text - only N/A SSML+PLS+CSS3
MathML Limited N/A Supported
Styling/Layout CSS 2 CSS 2.1 CSS 2.1 + 3

6. S t r e n g t h e n in g t h e W o r k f lo w
1. Production
– Author as resource
– Maximize use of tools
– Build checks in early not late
3. Validation
– epubcheck
4. Quality Assurance
– Machines miss things
– Accessibility does not always come “out of the box”
6. DRM
– Don’t restrict access

7. F a m ilia r iz in g A c c e s s ib ilit y
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025283.do
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025283.do

8. A c c e s s ib ilit y C h e c k lis t /
G u id e lin e s
• Companion to the O’Reilly best practices
• Condensed information and examples
• Includes content accessibility checklist
• Work in progress… seeking community input
http://www.daisy.org/daisy-epub-3-developments

9. ID P F A c c e s s ib ilit y F o r u m
• Ask questions!
http://idpf.org/forums/epub-accessibility
• Someone will try to answer
– I’m following as are DAISY staff

10. e pubc he c k
• Canonical validation tool for EPUBs
• Open source available at
http://code.google.com/p/epubcheck/
• Customizable – can be used for internal
production
• Graphical interface coming
• Plug-in architecture coming (modular
validation)

11. W h a t v a lid a t io n d o e s
• Ensures content is conformant to the
specifications
• Checks that required metadata is present
• Ensures the EPUB has been put together
properly

12. W h a t v a lid a t io n d o e s n ’ t d o
• Tell you how the publication will render
• Indicate all the things you might have
done better
• Tell you if the publication is accessible

13. A c c e s s ib ilit y C h e c k e r
• Quality Assurance tool
– Load EPUB and generate report
– Step through known problem areas
– Visually inspect reading order
– Test scripted content
• High level discussions ongoing

14. E P U B S a m p le s P r o je c t
• Provide real-world examples covering all
features
– Reference for creation
– Reference for reading system implementers
http://code.google.com/p/epub-samples/

15. U n iq u e O p p o r t u n it y
• Chance to start accessible – accommodate
different reading modalities
• Redefine the reading experience – importance
of data quality
• Distinguish your content and stand out from
the crowd

16. Th a n k yo u !
• Epubcheck
http://code.google.com/p/epubcheck/
• IDPF Accessibility Forum
http://idpf.org/forums/epub-accessibility
• Samples
http://code.google.com/p/epub-samples/
• EPUB 3 Content Guidelines
http://www.daisy.org/daisy-epub-3-developments
Matt Garrish matt.garrish@cdata.biz