Accessible publishing is about more than meeting disability discrimination requirements. Find out how why, and how, to implement accessibility into your publications.

Accessible publishing is about making content accessible to people who have difficulty reading, the “10% of people in the developed world and 15% in the developing world [who] have some degree of print impairment. These are people with visual impairments, with dyslexia, with motor disabilities or with age related macular degeneration which can seriously affect their ability to read.” [1]

Why accessible publishing matters

Everyone has a right to access information. This right is specifically mandated by Article 21 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as in the laws of governments in many jurisdications, such as the Equality Act 2010 (UK), the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Australia) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (USA). [2]

Organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) must meet these mandatory requirements for their publications. When the WHO chose Typefi to automate production of its journals, books and other publications, a significant factor was Typefi's support for accessibility. (You can read more about how the WHO implemented accessibility using Typefi NLM in the article by Melanie Lauckner of WHO and Chandi Perera of Typefi Systems here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK47082/.)

Lauckner and Perera identify two further reasons to implement accessibility:

• commercial – print impaired readers represent an “untapped market”, and
• convenience:

"An accessible publication is often easier for people with unimpaired vision to use as well. If a document is clearly laid out and logically structured, it makes for better and faster comprehension. If a document is available in audio formats, it can also be useful to those who prefer to access information on the move or while they are occupied with other tasks." [3]

How to implement accessible publishing

Advances in technology and the rise of a range of digital publishing formats means a much wider range of options and opportunities for both publishers and readers.[4]

To assist publishers, Editeur and WIPO have sponsored the publication of Accessible Publishing: Best Practice Guidelines for Publishers, available for download from the WIPO platform Vision IP: http://www.visionip.org/portal/en/index.html. The guidelines have been endorsed by The International Publishers Association, The Federation of European Publishers and The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers. They cover both business and technological aspects of accessible publishing for executive, editorial, production, IT and customer service staff. There is also a helpful glossary.

Digital publishing

Although accessibility is not all about technology (see below), preparing your digital files in specific ways helps. The guidelines list these options:[5]

• structurally-tagged content
• enabling text-to-speech
• a detailed, hierarchical table of contents
• use of alt-text (alternative text) to convey images, graphics and tables
• allowing users to select font sizes, styles and colours, background colours and line spacing (within and between paragraphs)
• ensuring DRM (digital rights management) settings don’t interfere with accessibility.

The guidelines highlight the importance of XML in the workflow for producing accessible publications, and also explain its business benefits.[6] Well-structured XML can be used to produce:

• PDFs optimised for digital use through structural tags (see the User Tip below),
• DAISY files,
• EPUB files, and
• XHTML files.

Customers who aren’t already taking advantage of Typefi Publish to produce accessible digital publications should download the guidelines. You can also talk to your Typefi contact about implementing accessibility into your range of outputs.

Print publishing

Accessible print publishing involves choices in colour, paper stock, layout and of course text. The Royal National Institue for the Blind has very helpful information on all aspects of accessible publishing on its website, including Clear Print which it defines as print design guidelines that enable “everyday information to be immediately accessed by more people." [7] Among the RNIB’s “top tips for achieving Clear Print” are the following text-related design choices:

• a font size of 12-14 pt for text
• a clear font, not a stylised font
• left align all body text
• only use bold sparingly to highlight words for emphasis rather than for entire paragraphs
• don’t use blocks of capitalised letters, and try not to use italics or underlining.

Read the full list, and other accessibility information, on the RNIB website: http://www.rnib.org.uk.

For many print publishers, there are valid reasons why some of these tips can’t be implemented for mainstream production of print books. However, Typéfi Publish enables publishers to repurpose the same content through a separate template designed for Clear Print or Large Print, for minimal cost and effort. Used in conjunction with print-on-demand technologies, publishers can make accessible print publications available too.

For more on Typefi and accessible publishing, see the Accessible Solutions page on our website.

References

1. Sarah Hilderley, Accessible Publishing: Best Practice Guidelines for Publishers, Editeur/WIPO, p5.

2. Melanie Lauckner and Chandi Perera, “Accessible publishing using the Journal Article Tag Suite”, Proceedings of the Journal Article Tag Suite Conference 2010 [Internet], Bethesda (MD): National Center for Biotechnology Information (US); 2010-.

3. Lauckner and Perera (2010).

4. Lauckner and Perera (2010).

5. Accessible Publishing, pp 8-9.

6. Accessible Publishing, pp 9-13.

7. http://www.rnib.org.uk/professionals/accessibleinformation/text/Pages/clear_print.aspx