Topics

Accessibility Conformance

The accessibility conformance topics provide information on meeting the various accessibility standards that apply to digital publications.

  1. EPUB Accessibility
    Explanation of the EPUB Accessibility specification.
  2. Section 508 (US)
    Explanation of the US Section 508 requirements for publications.
  3. WCAG Overview
    Introduction to the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
  4. WCAG Explainers
    Introductions to each WCAG success criterion. Link leads to a submenu of topics.

EPUB

The EPUB topics cover accessibility issues that are unique to the EPUB format.

General

  1. Core Media Types
    Explanation of formats that are assured to render in EPUB publications.
  2. Cover
    Accessible practices for including a cover image.
  3. Publication Title
    Providing a title for an EPUB publication.
  4. Reading Order
    Specifying the reading order of documents the spine.
  5. Remote Resources
    Overview of the problems hosting resources outside the EPUB container.
  6. Setting the Language
    Language identification in the package document and in content documents.
  7. Text Direction
    Specifying whether metadata text direction is left-to-right or right-to-left.

Validation

  1. Validation Process
    Overview of the validation process and tools and for EPUB publications.
  2. Epubcheck
    How to use epubcheck to check publications for conformance issues.
  3. Ace by DAISY
    How to use the Ace checker to find accessibility issues.
  4. Ace SMART
    How to use the Ace SMART tool to evaluate a publication against the EPUB Accessibility specification.

Navigation

The navigation topics describe how to author accessible navigation aids.

Publication Navigation

  1. Content Lists
    Describes how to add lists of tables, figures, etc.
  2. Landmarks
    Describes the EPUB concept of publication landmarks.
  3. Table of Contents
    Describes best practices for including tables of contents.

Page Navigation

  1. Overview
    Introduction to the components of page navigation.
  2. Page Break Markers
    Describes the how to add page break markers.
  3. Page List
    Describes the purpose and construction of a page list.
  4. Page Source
    How to identify the source of pagination.

Metadata

The metadata topics describe the accessibility properties available in widely used digital publishing metadata standards.

General

  1. Evaluation
    Covers the conformance and evaluation metadata required by the EPUB Accessibility specification.

Schema.org

  1. Overview
    Introduction to the accessibility metadata properties defined in the schema.org CreativeWork type.
  2. Accessibility APIs
    Identifying compatibility with platform APIs using the accessibilityAPI property.
  3. Accessibility Controls
    Identifying how users can control the content using the accessibilityControl property.
  4. Accessibility Features
    Expressing features of the content using the accessibilityFeature property.
  5. Accessibility Hazards
    Expressing dangers for users using the accessibilityHazard property.
  6. Accessibility Summary
    Providing a summary using the accessibilitySummary property.
  7. Access Modes
    Identifying the nature of the content using the accessMode property.
  8. Sufficient Access Modes
    Identifying sufficient means of reading that provide access to the information using accessModeSufficient property.

ONIX

  1. Overview
    Overview of ONIX accessibility metadata
  2. Codelist 196
    Expressing accessibility metadata using list 196
  3. Codelist 143
    Expressing accessibility hazard risks using list 143
  4. Codelist 81
    Expressing access mode metadata using list 81

HTML

The HTML topics cover issues related to producing accessible HTML content. Guidelines include how to use elements and attributes accessibly, how to create common publishing structures such as indexes and glossaries accessibly, and how to apply ARIA roles, states, and properties.

Elements and Attributes

  1. Abbreviations
    The abbr element
  2. Access Keys
    The accesskey attribute
  3. Articles
    The article element
  4. Asides
    The aside element
  5. Audio
    The audio element
  6. Bolding and Italics
    The b, em, i, and strong elements
  7. Context Breaks
    The hr element
  8. Details
    The details element
  9. Figures
    The figure element
  10. Forms
    The form element
  11. Headings
    The h1 to h6, hgroup, and heading elements
  12. Identifiers
    The id attribute
  13. Inline Frames
    The iframe element
  14. Language
    The lang and xml:lang attributes
  15. Links
    The a element
  16. Lists
    The dl, ol, and ul elements
  17. Main Content
    The main element
  18. MathML
    The math element
  19. Meta
    The meta element
  20. Object
    The object element
  21. Page Title
    The title element
  22. Quotes
    The blockquote and q elements
  23. Sections
    The section element
  24. Text Direction
    The dir attribute
  25. SVG
    The svg element
  26. Video
    The video element

Images

  1. Animated Images
    Best practices for accessible animated images.
  2. Decorative Images
    How to identify images that do not convey information to users.
  3. Icons
    Best practices for including accessible icons.
  4. Image Descriptions
    Methods and writing techniques for alternative text and descriptions.
  5. Image Maps
    Best practices for including accessible image maps.
  6. Image Selection
    Methods for including images optimized for different device rendering capabilities.
  7. Images of Text
    Best practices when images contain text.
  8. QR Codes
    Best practices for adding QR codes.
  9. Text-based Images
    Techniques for making accessible text-based images, such as ASCII art, emoticons, redacted text, and fill-in-the-blank questions.

Tables

  1. Table Basics
    Introduction to the basics of accessible table markup.
  2. Complex Headers
    Best practices for making complex table headers accessible.
  3. Header Scope
    Identifying when table headers apply to row or columns.
  4. Layout Tables
    Best practices for when table layouts cannot be avoided.
  5. Table Captions
    Adding a caption to explain the purpose of a table.
  6. Table Summaries
    Adding a summary to describe the structure of a table.

Structures

  1. Bibliographies
    Markup recommendations for producing accessible bibliographies.
  2. Glossaries
    Markup recommendations for producing accessible glossaries.
  3. Indexes
    Markup recommendations for producing accessible indexes.

Patterns

  1. Drop Caps
    Methods for creating accessible drop caps.
  2. Footnotes and Endnotes
    Accessibly identifying, structuring, and linking notes and their references.
  3. Hidden Content
    Techniques for hiding content both from visual rendering and from assistive technologies.
  4. Poetry
    Techniques for formatting and describing line-based content.
  5. Links to Reference Marks
    Practices for linking back to the references to tables, figures, notes, etc.

Concepts

  1. Logical Reading Order
    Practices for ensuring that the primary narrative is clearly separated from secondary content.
  2. Separation of Style
    Practices for ensuring that style is not the only way that necessary information is conveyed.

ARIA

  1. ARIA Landmarks
    Introduces the ARIA landmark roles for identifying key sections of publications.
  2. ARIA role Attribute
    Describes how the ARIA role attribute influences how assistive technologies understand elements that carry the attribute.
  3. Digital Publishing Roles
    Introduction to the DPUB-ARIA module for use with the ARIA role attribute. The page also links through to detailed descriptions for each role in the module.

Semantics

  1. EPUB type Attribute
    Overview of how the attribute can improve reading system experiences even though it does not affect assistive technologies.

CSS

The CSS topics cover the accessible styling of content using the cascading style sheets technology.

  1. Color
    Techniques to ensure color is not the only means by which information is conveyed.
  2. Contrast
    Techniques to ensure sufficient contrast when setting foreground and background colors.
  3. CSS Property Reference
    Reference to core CSS properties that have known accessibility issues.
  4. Reflow
    Discussion of the issues styling presents in meeting WCAG's reflow requirement.
  5. Text Resizing
    Techniques for avoiding accessibility issues when text is resized.
  6. Text Spacing
    Techniques for avoiding accessibility issues when text spacing is changed.

Scripted Content and Forms

The scripting and forms topics cover issues related to adding interactive content to digital publications.

  1. Autocomplete
    Using the autocomplete attribute to help users fill in common form fields.
  2. Custom Controls
    Using ARIA roles, states, and properties to make custom controls accessible.
  3. Input Validation
    Techniques for ensuring that users can understand and correct input errors in forms.
  4. Keyboard Control
    Techniques for ensuring that keyboard users can control scripted content.
  5. Labels
    Techniques for ensuring that inputs and controls are accessibly labelled.
  6. Progressive Enhancement
    Review of progressively enhancing content so that it remains accessible when scripting is not available.
  7. Tab Order
    Techniques for ensuring the keyboard tab order is accessible.
  8. Timers
    Techniques for ensuring timed content is accessible.

Fixed Layouts

The fixed layouts topics cover issues with creating content that is laid out on pages with fixed dimensions (i.e., the content does not reflow to fit the screen but stays where it is positioned).

General

  1. Overview
    General introduction to creating fixed layouts in EPUB.
  2. HTML Layouts
    Overview of creating accessible fixed layouts in HTML.
  3. Images in Spine
    Overview of accessibility issues putting images directly in the EPUB spine.
  4. SVG Layouts
    Overview of creating accessible fixed layouts in SVG.
  5. WCAG Conformance
    Overview of the difficulties making fixed layouts conform to WCAG accessibility requirements.

Techniques

  1. Images
    Explores the issues making image-based fixed layouts accessible.
  2. Multipage Spreads
    Explores the issues with content that is split across fixed-layout pages.
  3. Orientation
    Explores the issues with constraining the orientation in which fixed layouts render.

Synchronized Multimedia

The synchronized multimedia topics cover the creation of digital publications that provide synchronized text and audio playback. These types of publications are often referred to as "read aloud" books.

Implementations

  1. EPUB 3 Media Overlays
    Overview of EPUB 3's media overlays feature for synchronizing text with prerecorded audio playback.

Techniques

  1. Highlighting
    Considerations for accessible text highlighting.
  2. Lists
    Structuring lists for synchronized playback.
  3. Tables
    Structuring tables for synchronized playback.

Text to Speech

The text-to-speech (TTS) topics cover technologies that aid in producing high-quality TTS playback.

  1. Overview
    Overview of the issues with text-to-speech playback and the technologies available to help.
  2. CSS3 Speech
    Review of the Speech module properties for controlling TTS playback through style sheets.
  3. PLS Lexicons
    Review of using pronunciation lexicons to create dictionaries of terms.
  4. SSML
    Review of EPUB's attribute implementation of the Synthetic Speech Markup Language.