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Description of research conducted on the accessibility and usability of e-book delivery platforms and presentation of the Accessibility Bridge model as a metaphor for the access process in this multi-stage process.
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Unlocking Potential
e-Books and Inclusion: dream come true or nightmare unending?
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Dr Simon Ball
JISC TechDis
Unlocking Potential
JISC TechDiswww.techdis.ac.uk
• Funded to increase accessibility and inclusion through technology in UK post-compulsory education.
• Work in many areas from guidance for teachers on using MS Word more accessibly, or using podcasts or video; to guidance for university managers on policy and strategy for inclusion.
Unlocking Potential
Work with UK Publishers Association
• JISC TechDis have been working with UKPA and RNIB for several years on several projects, including:• Adding Value to Libraries publication• The Right To Read campaign
http://bit.ly/RightToRead• The Publisher LookUp Database and
Awards (nominations for 2010 awards still open) www.publisherlookup.org.uk
Unlocking Potential
Progress so far
• UK Publishers are moving steadily towards more accessible practices:• Agreeing to support a standard procedure for
universities obtaining accessible versions of texts: www.techdis.ac.uk/getaltformat
• Entering contact details for obtaining alternative formats in Publisherlookup database
• Consulting JISC TechDis on accessibility of new developments. This led to a potential problem being identified…..
Unlocking Potential
The Problem
• Most e-books are produced in EPUB format.• EPUB is fairly accessible due to being based on
XHTML.• Most publishers/libraries wish to control or regulate
the provision of e-books to those entitled (through registration, fee, library membership etc)
• The platforms that are used to deliver e-books often over-ride the accessibility of EPUB e-books (some were reported to be very inaccessible).
Unlocking Potential
The Concept
• In order to conceptualise the difficulty users faced (and to present this to the Publishers) we devised a model: The E-Book Accessibility Bridge.
• Users have to travel over the bridge to get over the ‘inclusion gap’ and achieve full access to their e-books.
Unlocking Potential
The Model
The E-Book Accessibility Bridge Model
Unlocking Potential
The Research
• We decided to user-test for accessibility several of the more common e-book delivery platforms.
• 9 platforms were studied for
us by The Shaw Trust.• We wanted to test for their
actual accessibility or
usability – not their
adherence to standards or
guidelines.
Unlocking Potential
The Testing
• Each tested by a range of users for:• Personalisation (e.g. font size, colour, style).• Accessibility information (Plain English advice).• Assistive technology compatibility for key tasks.
• Each was tested with:• Voice recognition.• Keyboard only access.• Screenreader access.• Low vision.
Unlocking Potential
Results
• 3 types of barriers were identified:• Perceptual (users unable to find a feature that was
present and accessible to their technology).• Usability (access being theoretically possible, but
impractical e.g. 100 keystrokes to browse to a book!)
• Technological (conflicts
between the platform and
the user’s assistive
technology).
Unlocking Potential
The good news…
• Most of the platforms were accessible to most of the users, to some degree.
• Access is often prevented by something very small and therefore readily fixed, for example:• Some required users to click on a button invisible to
screen reading technology.
• Sometimes access could be greatly improved by the addition of ‘skip links’ features.
• Sometimes simply renaming links would help (so they don’t all read ‘go to e-book’!).
Unlocking Potential
The bad news...an example
Number of ‘actions’ needed to browse to a book and read three pages.
Platform W X Y Z
Keyboard-only 125 170 3 11
Mouse-only 7 5 9 3
Screen reader 9 18 XX 9
Voice input 6 7 XX 6
Unlocking Potential
Inconsistency
• No platform was wholly accessible.• No platform was wholly inaccessible.• Most platforms were inconsistent in their
accessibility – for example Platform Y was completely keyboard-accessible for some tasks, and completely keyboard-inaccessible for others.
Unlocking Potential
The implications…
• The results have been positively received by the publishers.
• They need to get this right in order to deliver in media even more likely to present barriers e.g. mobile media
Unlocking Potential
The Guidance
• The results have been used to produce a Good Practice Guide for publishers on the accessibility of e-book platforms. http://bit.ly/EBooksAccessibility
• A second Good Practice Guide aimed at libraries supporting users to obtain and use e-books is due in August 2010.
