EPUB 3 – ebooks designed for all
Putting eAccessibility at the core of information systems
26/03/2012, Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, Paris
Markus Gylling, CTO, IDPF & DAISY Consortium
mgylling@idpg.org
What is the International Digital
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
<Adoption
Timeline>
2011
- EPUB 3.0 (October)
- EBPAJ endorse
2009
- Google: 1M PD EPUBs
- Sony store to EPUB
2012
- Readium EPUB 3 Reader
- Sub-projects:
2010
- Apple iBooks
- Fixed Layout
- 25+ eReaders
- Indexes
- 25+ smartphone apps
- Dictionaries
2008
- Most Kindle sales from
- …
- Assoc. Am. Pub. (AAP),
titles ingested as EPUB
UK Pub. Assoc. (PA) endorse
- EPUB 2.0.1
2007
- EPUB standardized
- EPUB 3 WG chartered
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920022442.do
<EPUB 3 in five bullets>
• 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…
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025283.do
<EPUB
3 accessibility>
Structure and Semantics
Web Techniques (HTML5/WCAG)
Text-to-Speech
Media Overlays
Metadata
Rich Navigation
ARIA
<the
complete chain>
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
<structure
and semantics>
• 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
<rich
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
<media


overlays>
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
<text-to-speech


(TTS)>
EPUB 3 adds ability for producers to include pronunciation and
prosody instructions:
 PLS
 SSML
 CSS 3 Speech
Lexicons can be reused
<interactivity
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
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 epublication
– 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
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 output
Use XHTML5 elements properly - structure and semantics
Do not use bitmap images to convey information
Use EPUB 3 semantic inflection where necessary
Use basic Web HTML5/WCAG techniques
• Scripted content needs extra attention
Use 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 (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 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/