User Experience Guide for accessibility metadata 2.0 first public draft available for review

Dear Publishing Community,

 

Please feel free to circulate within your company!

 

As we all know by now, the European Accessibility Act comes into force in
June 2025, and it requires that end users and educators have access to
information about the accessibility of the publications they plan to
purchase or assign to students.

 

With this in mind, we are pleased to announce that the first public draft of
the "User Experience Guide for the Display of Accessibility Metadata 2.0" is
now available for review and comment. We are seeking feedback from the
publishing, bookselling, and library communities, as well as from
distributors of digital books.

 

This set of guidelines is an essential read for many in the publishing and
distribution chain:

 

The Principles document
<https://w3c.github.io/publ-a11y/UX-Guide-Metadata/2.0/principles/>  is the
backbone of the guidelines and is essential for everybody to read.

The ONIX metadata Techniques
<https://w3c.github.io/publ-a11y/UX-Guide-Metadata/2.0/techniques/onix-metad
ata/index.html>  and EPUB Accessibility metadata Techniques
<https://w3c.github.io/publ-a11y/UX-Guide-Metadata/2.0/techniques/epub-metad
ata/index.html>  explain the logic of how the metadata gets converted to
meaningful statements that will resonate with end users. Every software
developer/coder implementing the presentation in a catalogue needs to study
these techniques, but it is also recommended that anyone responsible for
metadata in a publishing house review them

 

Comments are most welcome, and we ask that you file a GitHub issue
<https://github.com/w3c/publ-a11y/issues> .

 

If you are uncomfortable filing a GitHub issue, feel free to send me the
comment and I will file the issue on your behalf.

 

Principles:
https://w3c.github.io/publ-a11y/UX-Guide-Metadata/2.0/principles/

ONIX metadata techniques:
https://w3c.github.io/publ-a11y/UX-Guide-Metadata/2.0/techniques/onix-metada
ta/index.html

EPUB accessibility metadata techniques:
https://w3c.github.io/publ-a11y/UX-Guide-Metadata/2.0/techniques/epub-metada
ta/index.html

Issue tracker: https://github.com/w3c/publ-a11y/issues

 

Thanks

Avneesh Singh

Chair, Accessibility task force - Publishing CG

COO, DAISY Consortium