The status of digital accessibility
in France
Dominique BURGER
Université Pierre et Marie Curie
Association BrailleNet
dominique.burger@upmc.fr
Funka Accessibility Days – Stockholm – 11 April 2013
Outlines
1. Web Accessibility
• Regulations in France
• AccessiWeb
2. eBook Accessibility
• Copyright Exception in France
• Biblothèque Numérique Francophone Accessible
France seen from the sky
Stockholm is here
France is there
France seen from MeAC (2011)
Monitoring eAccessibility in Europe
100
90
80
eAccessibility status
70
ES
60
50
UK
40
AU
GR
30
CZ
NO
DE
CA
IT
DK
20
FR
SE
IE
HU
Trendline (EU countries)
US
PT
NL
10
0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
eAccessibility policy implementation level
Internet accessibility versus Internet accessibility policy
100
A brief story of Web Accessibility in France
1999
W3C/WAI releases WCAG 1.0 (May 99)
Circular of the Prime Minister (Oct. 99)
European recommendations : communications of the
commission 2001, 2002; resolution of the Parliament 2002
2003
AccessiWeb 1.0 by BrailleNet
2004
Adoption of AccessiWeb by the French government
2005
Law of 11 february 2005 – art 47
Law of 11 february 2005 – art 47
law
• 11/02/05 - The Law for Equal Rights and Opportunities,
Participation and Citizenship of People with Disabilities
• Article 47, makes accessibility of all public digital
communication services mandatory, i.e. public websites, but
also phone and TV services , according to international
standards.
• 10/09 - Decree
decree
and ?
•
The decree refers to a technical reference document (RGAA) that specifies
requirements for public Web sites. This document is “based” on WCAG 2.0
•
Employees of public services should be trained
•
Conformity is Self Declarative
• No control authority
No declarations
• No plan for large-scale training
insufficient
e-Accessibility skills
AccessiWeb – a Non-for-profit Initiative
2003
2013
Demands
BrailleNet’s Answers
Information, clarification, explanations,
translations
Guidelines => AccessiWeb 1.0
Advises
AccessiWeb Training
Conformity Assessment
3rd Party certification procedure
(label AccessiWeb)
2003 : Launch of the GTA (AccessiWeb
Working Group )
Without professional skills policies remain unfulfilled
Skills are supported by communities
AccessiWeb Working Group(GTA)
GTA
• 470 professionals trained by BrailleNet
• Public and private Sectors
• Developers, project managers, Content providers, …
 Technical Seminars
17 seminars since 2003, 850 participants
 Translations
WCAG 2.0 in French - 25 June 2009
First W3C authorized translation
Comprendre les WCAG 2.0 - 6 July 2011
 Technical Reference
documents
AccessiWeb 5 versions de 1.0 à 2.2, AccessiWeb CMS 1.0
 Methodological tools
MIPAW (in progress)
 Technical Discussions
Over 5000 Technical messages exchanged since 2003
Evolution of the GTA : 2003 - 2013
Developing of a network of Web accessibility experts in France
Missions of the GTA
GTA, a professional community in the field of Web accessibility
 To share common concepts and the same understanding
of accessibility; to exchange good practices
 A working method to make the expertise evolve
consensually
 A core of experts
 Expert Referees
 Open calls for Comments (GTA and beyond)
 Applied with success to
 Translations
 Versioning reference documents: 5 versions of AccessiWeb 1.0 to
2.2
 Elaborating a certification schema (in progress)
To help professionals developing and shape their expertise in Web accessibility
Main leading Principles








Liaison standardization bodies : W3C and DAISY
Transparency
Cooperation with industry
Respond to demands from industry
Independence - Vendor Neutrality
Cooperative work
Make consensus emerge
International cooperation
Make collective expertise emerge from individual know-how
Business Model






Non-for-profit association
Public support
Partnership with public institutions
Support from companies
Services : training, conformity audits
Contribution from members
• To adapt to market conditions
• To control the costs
• To Remain small
2013 Roadmap
Demand
BrailleNet’s Answer
Evolution towards HTML5
Evolution of AccessiWeb
WAI/ARIA, mobile technologies reference documents
Need for qualified experts
certification scheme
extended : conformity +
competence
From Certifying Conformity
Liaisons
Standardisation
Bodies
BrailleNet
Quality Control
Contract
Inspection
Body
Inspection
Body
AccessiWeb
Reference
document
Complaint
Chanel
On Line Web
Service
Galery of certified
WebSites
User
To Certifying Competence
COST -Scientific and Technical
Orientation Committee
Liaisons
Standardisation
Bodies
BrailleNet
Certification of
competences
Agreement of
Organizations
Peer
Examination
Contract
Expert ICA
Expert ICA
Expert ICA
Inspection
Body
Inspection
Body
Quality Control
AccessiWeb
Reference
document
Complaint
Chanel
On Line Web
Service
Professionnal
Directory
Galery of certified
WebSites
User
Conclusions
Over 10 years, AccessiWeb Working Group contributed to :
 effective dissemination of standards and best practices
 structuring of a professional sector
 set up a de facto authority (BrailleNet / AccessiWeb)
 provide an economical model
 the legitimity and credibility of e-accessibility
People and communities do matter !
eBook Accessibility
Read the same books not the same way
Papier
Helen Server
One unique format addressing various cases
XML
Daisy Text
Audio Daisy
ePUB 3.0
PDF
Braille
Copyright exception in France
2001
European Directive 2001/29/EC of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on
the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright
and related rights in the information society
2006
Law of 1 August 2006 – art 47 (DADVSI)
2008
decree n° 2008-1391 of 19 December 2008
2010
a)
b)
c)
Publishers provide files used to produce books
A national commission agrees organizations producing adapted books
Those organizations may request files via a platform managed by the
National Libary
Implementing the French exception
Law of 1 August 2006 + decree 2008
National Library
National Accreditation Body
Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Authorized
organization
Authorized
organization
Authorized
organization
Since July 2010
Eligible Users
Process & Costs
OCRisation
2 to 10 % of costs
90 to 98 % of costs
CORRECTIONS
STRUCTURATION
ADAPTATION
Average Cost
Average cost of a book adaptation in €
(medium complexity)
100
80
60
Coût moyen (€)
40
20
1h50/book
(calculated on 1100 titles
of low or medium complexity
0
Papier
PDF
Word
XML
XML
Bad vs Best
PDF
La santé de Louis XIV, Publisher Tempus
699 pages, 156 pages of notes
XML
Œuvres Complètes de Platon, Publisher
Flammarion, 2204 pages, 923 footnotes
Notice creation
Notice creation
OCR
Quick Check
Structuration and
correction
Automated
Conversion XML to
Daisy
And – the worse –
processing footnotes
25 hours
10 minutes
Bibliothèque Numérique
Francophone Accessible
=
+
+
Objectives
1. Better service to print disabled readers (unified procedures, larger
catalogue, better quality)
2. Efficiency of production (sharing tools, methods and resources)
3. Transparency to right holders
4. Dialogue with publishers
Catalogue
BNFA
Helen Library
Accessible Publishing Facilitated
2012
ePUB 3.0 contains all
accessibility features
required by the Daisy
Consortium
In 2011 IDPF appointed the Daisy CTO
as their Chief Technical Officer
Conclusions
 Technologies and standards have completely changed the
production process of books that are accessible to the print
disabled
 The production of accessible books and mainstream
commercial books are fundamentally similar
 Organization producing accessible books and publishers should
cooperate
 Copyright Exceptions exist in many countries
 However, the cross border exchange of adapted books is not
solved (TIGAR exploratory project run by WIPO)
Thank You !
Questions ?