User Experience Guide for Displaying Accessibility Metadata - is ready for implementation

Dear WAI Interest Group,

We are pleased to announce publication of the W3C Publishing Community Group Report:
 User Experience Guide for Displaying Accessibility Metadata 1.0
 https://www.w3.org/publishing/a11y/UX-Guide-metadata/principles/

Summary: The objective of this publication is to help digital bookstores, libraries, and other distributors of digital content display technical accessibility metadata in a user-friendly way that is easy to understand. This will enable users to make informed decision before they buy or download the publications. It also helps educators select from the most accessible materials available for their students.

Background: Finding, buying, and finally reading a publication is a very personal experience. For most of us, this is routine. We go to a bookstore, search for the title we are interested in or perhaps browse the best sellers list, then purchase and start reading the publication.

Now consider you are blind and rely on an assistive technology to read the publication. You wonder: will my screen reader work with this title; are there image descriptions that will be spoken to describe these images; are there page numbers which are accessible; is the reading order correct so I don't hear a “caution” after reading a paragraph which could be dangerous? These are just a few of the accessibility concerns consumers have when trying to purchase and ultimately read a digital publication.

The good news is more and more publishers are creating publications that are “Born Accessible” (that is, accessible from the outset, not fixed later). Publishers that produce Born Accessible books and publications are eager to have the accessibility of their publications exposed to the marketplace.

Input welcome: We look forward to questions, comments and participation from people who read, publishers, librarians, educators, distributors, and search engine implementers. We want distributors to expose the accessibility metadata in their libraries and bookstores, and we want end users to demand to find accessibility metadata wherever they obtain their reading materials.

Please provide comments via GitHub issues: https://github.com/w3c/publ-a11y/issues/new
If it’s not feasible for you to use GitHub, send comments in e-mail to: public-publishingcg@w3.org

Here's a tweet you can use to share the news: https://twitter.com/w3c_wai/status/1443419638482837505

Sincerely,
Avneesh Singh, Accessibility lead of the Publishing Community Group
Charles LaPierre, member of the Publishing Community Group
Gregorio Pellegrino, member of the Publishing Community Group
George Kerscher member of the Publishing Community Group
Matt Garrish, member of the Publishing Community Group
Ivan Herman, Technical Lead for Publishing@W3C




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Received on Thursday, 30 September 2021 03:40:07 UTC