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This document specifies content conformance requirements for verifying the accessibility of EPUB Publications. It also specifies accessibility metadata requirements for the discoverability of EPUB Publications.
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.
This document was published by the EPUB 3 Working Group as a Working Draft. This document is intended to become a W3C Recommendation.
GitHub Issues are preferred for discussion of this specification. Alternatively, you can send comments to our mailing list. Please send them to public-epub3@w3.org (subscribe, archives).
Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership.
This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
This document was produced by a group operating under the W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
This document is governed by the 15 September 2020 W3C Process Document.
This section is non-normative.
This document, EPUB Accessibility, addresses two key needs in the EPUB® ecosystem:
The provision of accessibility metadata facilitates informed decisions about the usability of an EPUB Publication. Consumers can review the qualities of the content and decide whether an EPUB Publication is appropriate for their needs, regardless of whether it meets the bar of being certified accessible. At a minimum, all EPUB Publications that conform to this document meet the accessibility metadata requirements described in § 2. Discoverability.
Although it has always been possible to create EPUB Publications with a high degree of accessibility, this document also sets formal requirements for content to be certified as accessible. These requirements provide EPUB Creators a clear set of guidelines to evaluate their content against and allow certification of quality. An accessible EPUB Publication is one that meets the accessibility requirements as described in § 3. Accessible Publications.
The document also establishes how to identify content that is optimized for specific user needs so cannot meet broad accessibility requirements. The requirements for optimized publications are described in § 4. Optimized Publications.
This document does not target a single version of EPUB. It is designed to be applicable to EPUB Publications that conform to any version or profile, including future versions of the standard.
Ideally, these guidelines will be instructive in evaluating any digital publication built on Open Web technologies, although ensuring such application is outside the scope of this document.
For additional background on the decisions that went into this document, refer to EPUB Accessibility Frequently Asked Questions [AccessibilityFAQ].
This section is non-normative.
This document takes an abstract approach to the accessibility requirements for EPUB Publications, similar to how WCAG [WCAG2] separates its accessibility guidelines from the techniques to achieve them. This approach allows the guidelines to remain stable even as the format evolves.
To facilitate this approach, the companion EPUB Accessibility Techniques [EPUB-A11Y-TECH-11] document outlines conformance techniques. These techniques explain how to meet the requirements of this document for different versions of EPUB.
This section is non-normative.
This document is designed to be applicable to any EPUB Publication, even if the content conforms to an older version of EPUB that does not refer to this document (e.g., EPUB 2 [OPF-201]).
Creators of such EPUB Publications are encouraged to create content in conformance with the accessibility and discoverability requirements of this document. Upgrading to the latest version of EPUB to get access to the most advanced accessibility features and techniques is also encouraged.
This document uses the following terminology defined in EPUB 3 [EPUB-3]:
In addition, it uses the definition of assistive technology as defined in [WCAG2].
An assistive technology is not always a separate application from a Reading System. Reading Systems often integrate features of standalone assistive technologies, such as text-to-speech playback.
As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.
The key words MAY, MUST, MUST NOT, OPTIONAL, RECOMMENDED, and SHOULD in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.
This section is non-normative.
Unlike web pages, EPUB Publications are designed to be distributed through many channels for personal consumption — a model that has made EPUB a successful format for ebooks and other types of digital publications. A consequence of this model, however, is that specific details about the accessibility of a publication need to travel with it.
An online bookstore aggregating content from publishers and authors, for example, does not know the production quality that went into each submission unless the publisher informs them through metadata.
Ensuring that the accessible qualities of an EPUB Publication can be discovered by any interested party is therefore a primary concern. Users need to be able to gauge the usability of an EPUB Publication when they purchase, borrow, or otherwise obtain it, a determination that requires knowing the affordances made to meet the accessibility requirements.
Similarly, content that does not meet the accessibility requirements of this document does not necessarily fail to meet the needs of individual users.
Only through the provision of rich metadata can a user decide if the content is suitable for them.
All EPUB Publications MUST include accessibility metadata in the Package Document that exposes their accessible properties, regardless of whether the publications also meet the accessibility or optimization requirements.
EPUB Publications MUST include the following accessibility metadata:
Access modes — a human sensory perceptual system or cognitive faculty necessary to process or perceive the content (e.g., textual, visual, auditory, tactile).
Accessibility features — features and adaptations that contribute to the overall accessibility of the content (e.g., alternative text, extended descriptions, captions).
Accessibility hazards — any potential hazards that the content presents (e.g., flashing, motion simulation, sound).
Accessibility summary — a human-readable summary of the overall accessibility, which includes a description of any known deficiencies (e.g., lack of extended descriptions, specific hazards).
EPUB Publications SHOULD include the following accessibility metadata:
Sufficient access modes — a set of one or more access modes sufficient to consume the content without significant loss of information. An EPUB Publication can have more than one set of sufficient access modes for its consumption depending on the types of content it includes (i.e., unlike access modes, this property takes into account any affordances for content that is not broadly accessible, such as the inclusion of transcripts for audio content).
EPUB Creators MAY include additional accessibility metadata not specified in this section.
See Discovery Metadata Techniques [EPUB-A11Y-TECH-11] for more information on these properties and how to include them in different versions of EPUB. See also DIST-002: Include accessibility metadata in distribution records [EPUB-A11Y-TECH-11] for more information on including accessibility metadata in other formats.
Accessibility metadata can also be included in linked records [EPUB-3] (i.e., metadata records referenced from link
elements), but the inclusion of such metadata solely in a linked record does not satisfy the
discoverability requirements of this document.
This section is non-normative.
EPUB is built on the Open Web Platform, with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and SVG, the core technologies used for content authoring. The use of these technologies means that EPUB Publications can be authored with a high degree of accessibility simply through the proper application of established web accessibility techniques.
The primary source for the production of accessible web content is the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) [WCAG2]. This document leverages the extensive work done in WCAG to establish benchmarks for accessible content, and the same four high-level content principles — perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust — are central to creating EPUB Publications that are accessible.
This section defines how to apply the conformance criteria defined in WCAG and addresses qualities unique to EPUB Publications.
EPUB Publications authored to comply with the requirements in this section will have a high degree of accessibility for users with a wide variety of reading needs and preferences.
This section is non-normative.
WCAG [WCAG2] and its associated techniques provide extensive coverage of issues and solutions for web content accessibility — from tables to embedded multimedia to rich semantics. They represent the foundation that this document builds upon.
This document does not repeat the requirements or techniques introduced in those documents, as it risks breaking compatibility between the two standards (e.g., putting guidance out of sync, or in conflict). At the same time, although the requirements are not individually called out, it does not diminish their importance in creating EPUB Publications that are accessible.
This document instead defines how to apply WCAG to an EPUB Publication — which is a collection of web documents as opposed to a single page — and adds an additional set of requirements. These requirements are no more or less important than those covered in WCAG; they are simply necessary to follow for EPUB Publications. (The relationship to WCAG is explained for each requirement in its respective section.)
The same is true of the techniques in the EPUB Accessibility Techniques document [EPUB-A11Y-TECH-11]. It provides coverage of techniques that are unique to EPUB Publications, or that need clarification in the context of an EPUB Publication. It does not mean that the rest of the WCAG techniques are not applicable.
As a result, although this section can be read without deep knowledge of WCAG conformance, to implement the accessibility requirements of this document will require an understanding of WCAG.
Because this document adds requirements that are not a part of WCAG, an EPUB Publication can conform to WCAG without conforming to this document.
An EPUB Publication has to meet the following requirements to conform to this specification:
It MUST meet the requirements of WCAG 2.0 [WCAG20], but it is strongly RECOMMENDED that it conform to the latest recommended version.
It MUST meet the requirements of Level A, but it is strongly RECOMMENDED that it meet Level AA [WCAG2].
The reporting flexibility offered by these requirements is to ensure that this specification can be adapted for use wherever accessibility is mandated but without negating or superseding the requirements in effect in any region.
The baseline requirement for WCAG 2.0 Level A, for example, is primarily intended to provide EPUB Creators backwards compatibility for older content and flexibility to encourage adoption of accessible production where no formal requirements exist. It is not generally recognized as providing a high degree of accessibility.
Ideally, EPUB Creators should try to conform to the latest version of WCAG at Level AA, but the formal thresholds they must meet will be defined by local and national laws, or by procurer or distributor requirements.
Examples of legislative requirements for accessibility include the Directive 2019/882 in the European Union and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 in the United States. EPUB Publications will need to meet more than just the basic Level A success criteria to be compliant with these laws.
Keeping pace with WCAG has the benefit of continuously enhancing access for users. As web technologies change and improve, and awareness of conditions that impede access evolve, new requirements are added to the standard. Meeting these additional requirements helps ensure EPUB Publications employ the most up-to-date techniques. Meeting the requirements of older versions, while still helpful, can result in a less optimal reading experience.
Similarly, Level AA conformance is often cited as the benchmark for accessibility in legal frameworks and policies. The reason for this is that it provides the greatest range of improvements that can realistically be implemented (EPUB Creators are encouraged to try and meet the AAA requirements if they can, but fully conforming at AAA is typically not possible). Only meeting level A requires compromises for various user groups that can again result in a less optimal reading experience.
The WCAG principles [WCAG2] focus on the evaluation of individual web pages, but an EPUB Publication more closely resembles what WCAG refers to as a set of web pages: "[a] collection of Web pages that share a common purpose" [WCAG2].
Consequently, when evaluating the accessibility of an EPUB Publication, individual pages — or Content Documents, as they are known in EPUB 3 — cannot be reviewed in isolation. Rather, their overall accessibility as parts of a larger work also MUST be evaluated.
For example, it is not sufficient for individual EPUB Content Documents to have a logical reading order if the publication presents them in the wrong order. Likewise, including a title for every EPUB Content Document is complementary to providing a title for the publication: the overall accessibility is affected if either is missing.
The WCAG guidelines for content to be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust therefore MUST be evaluated against the full EPUB Publication, not only to each Content Document within it.
More information about applying these guidelines to EPUB Publications is available in the EPUB Accessibility Techniques [EPUB-A11Y-TECH-11].
When evaluating an EPUB Publication, the WCAG conformance criteria [WCAG2] are applied as follows:
epub:switch
element [EPUB-3].This section is non-normative.
Media Overlays provide an accessible playback experience for anyone who benefits from having text and audio synchronized. They are also useful to users who only require audio playback, or only benefit from reading with text highlighting. Media Overlays also enable a seamless playback experience from beginning to end of an EPUB Publication for all these users.
The most basic Media Overlay Documents [EPUB-3] provide only minimal instructions to Reading Systems, however. They indicate the text to highlight and the audio clip that corresponds to the text. The result is that users only have basic start and stop options available.
EPUB Creators need to add structure and semantics to media overlay documents to allow Reading Systems to present more usable experiences. With richer markup, a Reading System could provide the ability to skip past secondary content that interferes with the primary narrative, escape users from deeply nested structures like tables, and allow them to navigate through the sections of the publication without having to go to the table of contents.
Adding structure and semantics to Media Overlay Documents broadly falls under the objective of the Info and Relationships success criterion [WCAG2]. Without structured and semantically meaningful playback sequences, the effect is to deprive users of rich navigation of the content.
Media Overlay Documents MUST meet the requirements in [EPUB-3]. It is not necessary to meet any additional requirements beyond those defined in [EPUB-3] to be conformant with this document.
To improve the usability of Media Overlays, however, EPUB Creators are encouraged to meet the objectives defined in this section.
EPUB Creators are not required to include Media Overlays in their EPUB Publications, only that they conform to these requirements when present.
Ensure Media Overlay playback matches logical reading order.
Every EPUB Publication has a default reading order that allows users to logically progress through the content. It ensures that readers are able to follow the primary narrative and also that secondary content is encountered where it makes the most sense. The default reading order also establishes some less obvious relations, like the progress within a table from cell to cell and row to row.
If the sequence of par
and seq
elements in a Media
Overlay Documents does not match this progression, it can cause confusion for
readers, whether they are only listening to the audio or trying to also follow
visually.
Ordering the playback to match the default reading order is the safest way to ensure that users can follow the text. In some cases, however, strict adherence to this practice could result in a suboptimal reading experience (e.g., playback of a table by column instead of row might make more logical sense in some cases). The goal of this objective is not to forbid alternate presentations, but to ensure that any deviations retain the logical flow of the content.
The par
and seq
elements in a Media Overlays Document
SHOULD be ordered such that they reflect both:
If a different ordering is used, it MUST still result in a logical playback of the content.
Enable users to automatically skip over content.
Being able to read the primary narrative of a work without being interrupted is central to reading comprehension. Publications are typically structured so that secondary information such as sidebars and footnotes is visually represented as outside the main narrative flow (e.g., by using different background colours or placement so readers can filter this information visually out while reading).
Readers who prefer auditory playback, however, cannot skip this information with the same ease by default. Media overlays playback will typically result in secondary content being read where it occurs.
By adding structural semantics to Media Overlay Documents, it is possible to create reading experiences in which users can decide which secondary content to skip by default during playback.
EPUB Creators are encouraged to identify all skippable structures [EPUB-3] in Media Overlay Documents.
Enable users to automatically escape from structured content.
When reading visually, users can quickly move through, and escape from, highly structured content such as tables, lists, and figures. Tables, for example, are laid out in rows and columns, which allows users to quickly move along either axis to find the information they want, and to easily return to the primary narrative when they are done. Lists, similarly, do not have to be read in their entirety but can be escaped from once the desired information has been found.
The same ease of escaping from content is not available in Media Overlay Documents by default. Users cannot escape from table cells, rows, or even the table itself, unless the structural semantics of those elements is encoded in the document.
By providing this information, it is possible to simplify playback for auditory readers so that a comparable reading experience is available.
EPUB Creators are encouraged to identify all escapable structures [EPUB-3] in the Media Overlay Documents.
This section is non-normative.
Conformance reporting is achieved through the expression of metadata properties in the EPUB Package Document.
This metadata establishes both:
The metadata uses a combination of properties from DCMI Metadata Terms [DCTERMS] and the EPUB Accessibility Vocabulary, as explained in more detail in the following sections.
To indicate that an EPUB Publication conforms to the accessibility requirements of this document,
it MUST include a conformsTo
property whose value MUST exactly match (i.e., both in case and spacing) the following
pattern:
EPUB Accessibility A11Y-VER + WCAG WCAG-VER Level WCAG-LVL
where:
MUST be the version number of the EPUB Accessibility
specification the publication conforms to. For the purpose of this specification, this
value MUST be 1.1
.
MUST be the version number of WCAG the publication conforms to
(e.g., 2.0
or 2.1
).
MUST be the WCAG conformance level the publication conforms to
(e.g., A
or AA
).
The following conformance strings are valid as of publication of this document:
This list will change as new versions of WCAG are released. For new versions of [WCAG2], only the digit after the "2." should change from the above patterns.
The future 3.0 version of WCAG is likely to also introduce new level names (currently Bronze, Silver and Gold). Those names would replace A, AA and AAA in the string pattern.
An EPUB Publication that only meets WCAG conformance requirements (i.e., does not fully
conform to this specification) can use a WCAG conformance URL (e.g.,
"https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
" for [WCAG21]) with
the confomsTo
property.
EPUB Publications MUST include an a11y:certifiedBy
property that specifies the name of the party that
evaluated the EPUB Publication.
Conformance evaluation can be done by any individual or party. The evaluator can be the same party that created the EPUB Publication or a third party.
If an EPUB Publication is evaluated by an organization, users will typically want to know the name of that organization. Including the name of the individual(s) who carried out the assessment, instead of the name of the organization, is generally discouraged, as it can diminish the trust the user has in the claim.
If the party that evaluates the content has been issued a credential or badge that establishes
their authority to evaluate content, that information is supplied in an a11y:certifierCredential
property.
If the party that evaluates the content has provided a detailed report of its assessment, a link
to the assessment is provided in an a11y:certifierReport
property.
As each metadata format is unique in what it can express, this document does not mandate how conformance metadata is expressed outside of the EPUB Package Document.
This document does not define requirements for accessibility metadata external to an EPUB 3 publication as part of distribution metadata. Ensuring consistency between internal and external accessibility metadata expressions is the responsibility of authors, publishers, and distributors. For further discussion of the effects of distribution on accessibility, see § 5. Distribution.
This section is non-normative.
The following guidance is intended to help determine when a new evaluation is necessary. It is not required to be followed to conform with this specification.
How long a conformance evaluation of an EPUB Publication is good for is complex question. Unlike web sites, which are continuously evolving, an EPUB Publication may never be updated again once it is published. As a result, an unmodified EPUB Publication will always conform to its last evaluation.
It is common in publishing, however, to release updated versions of an EPUB Publication when errors and typos are found in the work, as well as to periodically release new editions. Not all of the changes made to an EPUB Publication will substantively change its accessibility complicating the question of when a new evaluation is required or whether a full or partial re-evaluation will do.
As a general rule, EPUB Creators must re-evaluate their content whenever substantive changes are made to the structure and functionality of an EPUB Publication, such as:
If the EPUB Publication includes substantively the same markup and content as the previous release, only an evaluation of the changes may be necessary to re-confirm conformance.
If an updated version of this specification or [WCAG] has been published since the last time an EPUB Publication was released, however, it is also recommended to perform a new evaluation to ensure conformance to the latest standards. A full re-evaluation still may not be necessary (i.e., only new or modified success criteria may need to be checked unless the standards undergo major changes to methodology or conformance).
Conversely, a re-evaluation is typically not required when non-substantive changes are made, such as:
The determination of whether a change is substantive or not should be made by an individual qualified to assess the accessibility of EPUB Publications. An editor, for example, may not realize the impact of seemingly minor formatting changes.
Even in the case of non-substantive changes, an updated evaluation (full or partial) is recommended if the accessibility standards have changed.
EPUB Creators are encouraged to consider even more progressive approaches than those described here. Waiting for content changes before reviewing and updating the accessibility of EPUB Publications can leave them lacking recent improvements. For example, a publisher might prioritize periodic reviews of their top-selling EPUB Publications to ensure they remain maximally usable to the widest possible audience.
Although WCAG [WCAG2] provides a general set of guidelines for making content broadly accessible, conformant content is not always optimal for specific user groups. Conversely, content optimized for a specific need or reading modality is often not conformant to WCAG because it is not designed for a broad audience.
For example, an EPUB Publication with synchronized text and audio can contain a full audio recording of the content but limit the text content to only the major headings. In this case, the EPUB Publication is consumable by users who needs to hear the content (i.e., they can listen to the full publication and can navigate between headings), but it is not usable by anyone who cannot hear the audio.
In other words, when an EPUB Publication is optimized for specific reading modalities, the failure to achieve a WCAG conformance level does not make it any less accessible to the intended audience.
An EPUB Publication that has been optimized MUST identify the standard or
guidelines the content adheres to in a conformsTo
property in accordance with [DCTERMS]. The value of this property MUST be a URL in
accordance with [URL] that references the standard or guidelines it follows.
If the URL is not sufficient for a user to understand conformance (e.g., the guidelines are not publicly available), more information about how the content has been optimized SHOULD be provided in the accessibility summary.
This document does not define or recommend standards or guidelines for producing optimized content. The informative EPUB Optimized Publication Standards Registry is maintained separately from this document, but no endorsement of the standards is implied.
This section is non-normative.
Although it is not required to follow the recommendations in this section to conform to this specification, some jurisdictions require these practices be followed. Directive 2019/882, for example, includes similar requirements for digital publications distributed in the European Union.
The creation of accessible EPUB Publications does not guarantee that the publication will be obtainable or consumable by users in an accessible fashion. Depending on how the EPUB Publication is distributed, other factors will influence its overall accessibility. For example, an accessible interface for locating and obtaining content is an essential part of the distribution process, as is the ability to search and review accessibility metadata.
While much of the distribution process is outside the control of EPUB Creators, so outside the scope of this specification, there are factors an EPUB Creator can control. For example, while an EPUB Creator typically does not control the accessibility of the digital rights management (DRM) scheme applied to their EPUB Publications, they do control what usage rights to apply to their EPUB Publications. So even though a DRM scheme may allow an Author to block access to the text of the publication, the EPUB Creator needs to take care not to apply such a restriction as it could block the ability for assistive technologies to read the text aloud.
To minimize the effects of distribution on accessibility, EPUB Creators are therefore advised to adhere to the following distribution practices:
A distributor may implement a digital rights management scheme that inherently impairs accessibility through no fault of the EPUB Creator. Following the guidance in this section does not restrict EPUB Creators from using such distributors. The intent is only that the EPUB Creator not impair accessibility by activating a feature that that would normally not be active.
The working group will address issues related to privacy and security, if any, in a future draft.
This vocabulary defines properties for describing the accessibility of EPUB Publications in the Package Document metadata.
The base URL for referencing this vocabulary is
http://www.idpf.org/epub/vocab/package/a11y/#
.
The prefix "a11y:
" is reserved for use with properties in this vocabulary and does
not have to be declared in the Package Document.
Name: |
certifiedBy
|
---|---|
Description: | Identifies a party responsible for the testing and certification of the accessibility of an EPUB Publication. |
Allowed value(s): |
xsd:string
|
Cardinality: | One or more |
Example: |
|
Name: |
certifierCredential
|
---|---|
Description: | Identifies a credential or badge that establishes the authority of the party
identified in the associated certifiedBy
property to certify content accessible. |
Allowed value(s): |
xsd:string
|
Cardinality: | Zero or more |
Extends: |
a11y:certifiedBy
|
Example: |
|
Name: |
certifierReport
|
---|---|
Description: | Provides a link to an accessibility report created by the party identified in
the associated certifiedBy
property. |
Allowed value(s): |
xsd:anyURI
|
Cardinality: | Zero or more |
Extends: |
certifiedBy
|
Example: |
|
Note that this change log only identifies substantive changes — those that affect the conformance of EPUB Publications or are similarly noteworthy.
For a list of all issues addressed during the revision, refer to the working group's issue tracker.
par
and seq
elements in
media overlay documents to reflect a logical reading order. See issue 1556.refines
attribute to the certifierCredential
and certifierReport
properties and examples. See issue 1410.This section is non-normative.
The editors would like to thank the members of the EPUB 3 Working Group for their contributions to this specification: