RE: Seeking comments on draft EPUB Accessibility specification and techniques

Dear WAI IG,

I offered to provide some more context to the WAI IG around George's request for comments on the International Digital Publishing Forum's Draft documents:

EPUB Accessibility Conformance and Discovery Requirements for EPUB Publications
http://www.idpf.org/epub/a11y/

EPUB Accessibility Techniques
http://www.idpf.org/epub/a11y/techniques/

EPUB is the distribution and interchange format standard for digital publications and documents based on Web Standards. EPUB defines a means of representing, packaging, and encoding structured and semantically enhanced Web content for distribution in a single-file format.  EPUB allows publishers to produce and send a single digital publication file through distribution and offers consumers interoperability between software/hardware for unencrypted reflowable digital books and other publications. EPUB 3.1 will be released by the end of the calendar year.

Accessibility has always been of great importance to the IDPF. This accessibility documentation represents a basis for accessibility evaluation and discovery of accessibility qualities for any version of EPUB (past, present, or future). These documents define categories of accessible EPUB:

  *   Discovery-only - this category of EPUB Publication meets the discovery metadata requirements of this specification, but does not meet the accessibility requirements. Conformance is defined in Discovery-Enabled EPUB Publications<http://www.idpf.org/epub/a11y/#h.3gr23uo6lhid>.
  *   Accessible - this category of EPUB Publication meets all discovery, [WCAG 2.0]<http://www.idpf.org/epub/a11y/#kix.bau9g1dxr50s> and EPUB accessibility requirements. Conformance is defined in Accessible EPUB Publications<http://www.idpf.org/epub/a11y/#h.jumq1psfu13i>.
  *   Optimized - this category of EPUB Publication meets the discovery requirements for Optimizations<http://www.idpf.org/epub/a11y/#id.u22ixrv0jotx>. Conformance is defined in Optimized EPUB Publications<http://www.idpf.org/epub/a11y/#h.8aup4acm1y5w>.
Please provide your feedback to me, George Kerscher, or the IDPF GitHub Repository [https://github.com/IDPF/epub-revision/issues].

Thank you,
Tzviya


Tzviya Siegman
Information Standards Lead
Wiley
201-748-6884
tsiegman@wiley.com<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>


From: George Kerscher [mailto:kerscher@montana.com<mailto:kerscher@montana.com?Subject=RE%3A%20Seeking%20comments%20on%20draft%20EPUB%20Accessibility%20specification%20and%20techniques&In-Reply-To=%3C003901d1dd20%2467fbeb30%2437f3c190%24%40montana.com%3E&References=%3C003901d1dd20%2467fbeb30%2437f3c190%24%40montana.com%3E>]

Sent: 12 July 2016 23:44

To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org?Subject=RE%3A%20Seeking%20comments%20on%20draft%20EPUB%20Accessibility%20specification%20and%20techniques&In-Reply-To=%3C003901d1dd20%2467fbeb30%2437f3c190%24%40montana.com%3E&References=%3C003901d1dd20%2467fbeb30%2437f3c190%24%40montana.com%3E>

Subject: Seeking comments on draft EPUB Accessibility specification and

techniques



Dear WAI Interest Group,



The second editor's draft of the EPUB accessibility specification and

techniques are now available. This new draft adds additional clarity to

publication conformance requirements and provides a full set of techniques

for review.



We are looking for input from all sectors. The specification and techniques

build on WAI guidelines. We believe these specification and the conformance

requirements have the potential to revolutionize access to published works

by persons with print disabilities. Included in the spec and detailed in the

techniques are items such as:



The Schema property "accessibilitySummary," which for the first time would

make a human readable explanation of the accessibility of an EPUB

publication discoverable and available.

and

Another Schema property, "accessModeSufficient," which would clearly

identify the modes of access available to read the whole publication, e.g.

textual and auditory.



We fully expect the publications to be approved in 2016. You can provide

comments directly to me: Kerscher@montana.com<mailto:Kerscher@montana.com?Subject=RE%3A%20Seeking%20comments%20on%20draft%20EPUB%20Accessibility%20specification%20and%20techniques&In-Reply-To=%3C003901d1dd20%2467fbeb30%2437f3c190%24%40montana.com%3E&References=%3C003901d1dd20%2467fbeb30%2437f3c190%24%40montana.com%3E>



You can find them at:

EPUB Accessibility Conformance and Discovery Requirements for EPUB

Publications

http://www.idpf.org/epub/a11y/



EPUB Accessibility Techniques

http://www.idpf.org/epub/a11y/techniques/



Best

George



George Kerscher Ph.D.

-In our Information Age, access to information is a fundamental human right.

Chief Innovations Officer, DAISY Consortium

http://www.daisy.org

Senior Advisor, Global Literacy, Benetech

http://www.benetech.org

President, International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)

http://www.idpf.org

Member of the National Museum and Library Services  Board (IMLS)

http://www.imls.gov

Chair Steering Council Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a division of the

W3C

http://www.w3c.org/wai

Phone: +1 406/549-4687

Cell:+1 406/544-2466

Email: kerscher@montana.com<mailto:kerscher@montana.com?Subject=RE%3A%20Seeking%20comments%20on%20draft%20EPUB%20Accessibility%20specification%20and%20techniques&In-Reply-To=%3C003901d1dd20%2467fbeb30%2437f3c190%24%40montana.com%3E&References=%3C003901d1dd20%2467fbeb30%2437f3c190%24%40montana.com%3E>