Refreshable Braille Displays have revolutionized the ability to read in braille. With the help of a braille display, whatever is available as accessible digital text can also be available in braille. For people who read braille and rely upon it as their primary, and sometimes only reading format, there could not be anything better. Between 2012-2018 a significant effort was made to reduce the cost of refreshable braille displays to make this technology available in low and middle-income countries. These efforts resulted in multiple new devices being developed and brought to market, influencing existing products, and starting to revolutionize access to braille. However, making more affordable hardware available has driven demand for braille in local languages, both on braille devices and through screen reading software. The DAISY Consortium, through the Low-Cost Assistive Technology Project supported by Microsoft, is working on a strategic development to begin addressing this issue.
Liblouis is the open source braille translation software behind a wide variety of applications including many of the common screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA, Narrator, Orca, Talk Back and Voice Over, covering a diverse range of devices based on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android and iOS. Through Liblouis these screen reading applications are able to display digital text from computers or smartphones through a connected refreshable braille display. Most braille note takers or braille displays capable of working as a stand-alone device also use Liblouis language tables to add braille translation support for any language. By adding new language support through Liblouis, that language would seamlessly be added to a broad range of software and hardware.
While Liblouis currently supports 79 languages with contracted and uncontracted braille codes, many prominent languages of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, especially from low and middle-income countries are not yet supported in Liblouis. Through this project, DAISY is identifying languages not currently supported by Liblouis and will be working to add translation tables for at least two of them by March 2023. A survey we conducted earlier in the year identified 12 such languages, from which we selected Swahili and Chichewa as our first two to develop. Swahili is spoken in several African countries such as Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo DRC, and Burundi. Whereas Chichewa is the national and official language of Malawi. Through other initiatives, thousands of refreshable braille displays have been provided free of cost to school and university students with blindness in these countries, making a strong case for Swahili and Chichewa to be added to Liblouis.
With the support and involvement of language and braille experts from Kenya and Malawi, we will soon be adding support for both these languages in Liblouis, enabling students with blindness to have access to texts in their own language through their braille displays.
The Low-Cost Assistive Technology Project also includes the development of a simple but powerful conversion tool built upon the DAISY Pipeline technology which also utilizes Liblouis, enabling the creation of braille publications in these languages through this powerful tool. We look forward to bringing your further details in the coming months. To keep up with the latest developments from this project, along with other activities from DAISY and our member organizations, subscribe to the DAISY Planet Newsletter. Read More
September 14th 2022 saw the first in a new season of free DAISY webinars with a session focused on Accessible Publishing: The Fundamentals. Accessible publishing is gaining increasing attention, with many new people approaching the topic, often driven by legislation like the EU Accessibility Act. This webinar went back to the fundamentals, highlighting how people with print disabilities can access digital publications, the importance of adopting accessible publishing practices, and the wider benefits to your publications.
This page contains:
Full Video of the Webinar
Speakers
- James Taylor, International Publishers Association—Guest Host
- Gautier Chomel, EDRLab
- Prashant Verma, DAISY Consortium
- Brianna Walker, Taylor and Francis
Session Overview
Introduction to Accessible Publishing
Gautier Chomel reminded us that accessible publishing is big business and that digital content is a growing market. With changes in learning methods impacting this trend we can expect the growth to continue, particularly as legislation (such as The European Accessibility Act) impacts the supply chain and changes publishers’ perspectives. This session aims to give us a refresher for what we are all trying to achieve.
About Print Disability
Prashant Verma detailed exactly what a print disability is and how many people are affected by low vision, blindness, learning disabilities and developmental difficulties, all preventing access to printed material. Accessible digital content is revolutionary for readers with a print disability.
How Could People Read Your Publications?
It is well worth watching the video of this session for some examples of how people with print disabilities are able to read using accessible content. These demos and examples include:
- People with low vision tend to increase the text size and change the background color – Prashant pointed out that there are 240 million people worldwide with low vision.
- People who are blind use screen readers and/or electronic braille – all made possible by excellent navigation and accessibility features optimized within the content.
- People with learning difficulties can customize the text layout and use the read aloud function if they need to.
- Those with physical disabilities have a variety of options now available to them including switch or voice control technology
Accessible Digital Publishing Practices
Brianna Walker gave us the publisher perspective with some wonderful examples of good practice that has been adopted at Taylor and Francis by optimizing the features on offer within the EPUB 3 format. Brianna informed us of 4 top tips for good practice:
- Ensure text is text (and not images of text)
- Provide good structure
- Describe images
- Provide accessibility metadata
The Case For Accessible Publishing
The business case for accessible publishing is very often something that we have to advocate for in-house. Senior executives want to know that accessible publishing will help them to:
- reach more readers
- comply with the law
- meet purchasing requirements
- make better ebooks
- impact the supply chain
- promote their image
Where To Start
Brianna encouraged us all to consider a holistic approach when starting out by considering the bigger picture before focusing on what can be done in the short term and long term. It’s key to get commitment in-house and that investment needs to be on-going.
Patience is required but starting the journey is an instant win
Related Resources
- PowerPoint slide deck 26 MB
- Full transcript Word document 35 KB
Discover the other webinars we’re running!
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We recently conducted three webinars dedicated to introducing accessible publishing to an audience of people working in the publishing sector in Africa.
This webinar covering “The Fundamentals” was delivered in 3 languages, the recordings and associated materials are linked below:
First, we heard about the importance of accessible publishing for Africa from IPA President Bodour Al Qasimi and Ernest Oppong, Acting Executive Director of the African Publishers Network. Then we learned how accessible publishing can benefit millions of Africans with different print disabilities. We concluded the session with some examples of Accessible Publishing practices, and information about the free training that will be offered in the coming months.
Accessible Publishing in Africa The Fundamentals
Transcript of the English webinar
English Powerpoint slides
Publication accessible en Afrique Les fondamentaux
Transcription du webinaire en français
Diapositives Powerpoint en français
النشر الميسر في إفريقيا – الأسس والمقومات
These webinars and the associated training are part of an initiative driven by the Africa Publishing Innovation Fund (APIF), a grant-giving program co-led by philanthropic organization Dubai Cares working with the International Publishers Association (IPA), and the DAISY Consortium.
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Creating Accessible Books for Diverse and Affordable Reading Devices
At DAISY we have a long history of working with the world’s leading technology companies to deliver amazing solutions for people with print disabilities. We’re delighted to announce our latest project which is made possible thanks to the Microsoft AI for Accessibility program.
In 2004 a global summit organized by Microsoft and DAISY began the journey towards the global sharing of accessible publications for people with print disabilities. A lot of progress has been achieved since then, but the benefits have not reached most people in lower-income countries. This project will unlock accessible reading for people who currently do not have access.
As a result of the Marrakesh Treaty more than a million books have become available under international exchange through global collaborations. These books are in file formats that deliver a first-class accessible reading experience on smart phones, computers, or dedicated hardware players. However, these playback devices often don’t reach people in low resource parts of the developing countries. Many rural areas do not have adequate electricity or internet connectivity.
In this project DAISY will be developing an easy-to-use application to convert books so they can be used by the devices typically in the hands of persons with disabilities in low resourced parts of the world. This includes basic phones, affordable braille displays, and even solar-powered audio players.
The solution will make it much easier for disability organizations, libraries, and schools to create or convert books for the devices typically used in their environments. We think of this tool like a Swiss-army knife, a small and very easy to use tool which offers multiple solutions, taking content from an array of formats and converting it automatically to various accessible formats.
Through this transformative project many people with print disabilities will be able to study at school, prepare for employment, and gain access to health and emergency information using the reading devices that are popular in their communities.
Thanks to support from Microsoft, this innovative converter tool will be made freely available to all, helping to deliver accessible reading materials in the formats needed to people all around the world.
There are many aspects to this project which we will be sharing in greater depth over the coming months. To keep up with the latest developments from this project, along with other activities from DAISY and our member organizations, subscribe to the DAISY Planet Newsletter.
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The DAISY AGM this year included a presentation on the European Inclusive Publishing Forum which DAISY hosts to enable the sharing of information and practices from across Europe to support the publishing community in preparing for the European Accessibility Act.
Visit our Inclusive Publishing site to read the full details from each of the case studies mentioned in the video:
- Case Study 1: Finland
- Case Study 2: The Netherlands
- Case Study 3: Germany
- Case Study 4: Italy
- Case Study 5: Lithuania
Our European Inclusive Publishing Forum pages contain the latest information about this work, including details of how you can get involved.
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At DAISY we are regularly approached by institutions working for people with print disabilities to request training in the production of accessible books, document conversion, and accessible ebook creation.
For the past two years, training has been delivered online, through dedicated online courses, self-study materials, and trainer-led sessions delivered over video calls.
Last month we conducted our first onsite training since the onset of Covid conducted at Dehradun, India for the National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities, the apex institution established by the Government of India for the rehabilitation of people with visual impairments. This institution first adopted the DAISY format in 2010 and got in touch again because they are now interested in creating books in the EPUB format.
The staff of the National Braille Library, National Large Print Books Library, and the National Talking Book Library of India participated in this training program delivered by Prashant Ranjan Verma, where they learned to create accessible Word documents and the steps to convert to EPUB, large print, DAISY format, and braille. Refresher sessions were separately conducted for the National Talking Book Library team which is using Dolphin Publisher and Obi to create high-quality human narrated audio books.
This training was part of this institution’s work to adopt a “single source – multiple formats” workflow, where a master copy of the book will be created in Microsoft Word format and converted to different formats as and when requested by members with print disabilities.
If your organization is interested in training on the latest techniques for accessible format and inclusive publishing practices please contact us to discuss how we can assist you with your requirements.
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Liblouis is a free and open-source braille translation system that powers screen readers such as NVDA, JAWS to work with refreshable braille display in various languages, as well as a variety of conversion tools including the DAISY Pipeline. To facilitate accurate translation Liblouis has dedicated braille tables for each language that it supports.
If a language is supported by Liblouis, then it is possible to read create a braille version of a document in that language for use on a refreshable braille display such as an Orbit Reader, or embossed on braille paper.
Liblouis currently supports 79 languages, and many of those languages have braille tables for grade 1 and grade 2 (uncontracted and contracted) braille. You can find the list below.
Considering the importance of Liblouis in supporting braille usage on refreshable braille displays and for the production of braille books, the DAISY Consortium is seeking assistance in compiling a list of languages that are not yet supported in Liblouis and in which accessible books are currently published. We are also seeking feedback on languages that are currently supported, but in which the braille translation may not be correct.
Once we have identified these gaps we will be able to plan for filling them by adding braille tables of identified languages. If you are aware of any language in which accessible books are published and braille translation tables are not available or currently adequate please let us know:
Visit the Liblouis feedback form
List of languages for which braille translation tables are available in Liblouis:
- Afrikaans
- Arabic
- Armenian
- Assamese
- Bashkir
- Belarusian
- Bengali
- Bulgarian
- Burmese
- Catalan
- Chinese Mandarin
- Chinese Cantonese
- Coptic
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Esperanto
- Estonian
- Ethiopic
- Finish
- French
- Gaelic
- German
- Greek
- Gujarati
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Icelandic
- Irish
- Israeli
- Italian
- Kannada
- Kashmiri
- Kazak
- Khmer
- Korean
- Kurdish
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Malay
- Malayalam
- Manipuri
- Marathi
- Mongolian
- Nepali
- Norwegian
- Oriya
- Persian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Punjabi
- Romanian
- Russian
- Sanskrit
- Sepedi
- Serbian
- Sesotho
- Setswana
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Tamil
- Tatar
- Telugu
- Tshivenda
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
- Unified English Braille
- Urdu
- Uzbek
- Vietnamese
- Welsh
- Xhosa
- Yakut
- Zulu
EPUB 3 has widely been adopted by the commercial publishing community as the chosen format for digital books, and is being increasingly utilized for accessible format delivery by educators and specialist libraries. The new version of the standard, EPUB 3.3, the related EPUB 1.1 accessibility specification and the updated version of EPUBCheck is imminent and we asked EPUB 3.3 editor and DAISY developer Matt Garrish; ‘What does this mean for accessible publishing?’
What is EPUB ?
The EPUB specification is a distribution and interchange format standard for digital publications and documents. There are huge opportunities for accessibility within the EPUB standard and indeed for born accessible publications. At DAISY we have some overview information to help you familiarize yourself with the standard itself and its component parts. In addition, the W3C maintain an overview document that provides a general introduction to the state of the format as of this revision.
Can We Expect Major Changes For Accessibility?
Neither the EPUB 3.3 nor the Accessibility 1.1 revisions represent major changes. Most of our efforts are focused on taking the work we’ve already done and moving the documents through the W3C process to make formal recommended specifications of them (i.e., to be fully recognized by W3C membership). EPUB 3.2 was published by the W3C publishing community group, so those documents did not have any formal standing (they didn’t have to go through W3C membership votes, they didn’t have to show independent implementations, etc.). So, EPUB 3.3 will formalize the standard.
So, EPUB 3.3 Doesn’t Look That Much Different?
Actually, EPUB 3.3 does not look at all like EPUB 3.2 from a document structure perspective. EPUB 3.2 was made up of five specifications (not including Accessibility 1.1 which is a separate specification):
- EPUB 3.2
- EPUB Packages 3.2
- EPUB Content Documents 3.2
- EPUB Open Container Format (OCF) 3.2
- EPUB Media Overlays 3.2
The authoring requirements from these specifications have now been merged into a single specification called EPUB 3.3, which is available in draft form right now at: https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-33/
EPUB 3.3 Splits Authoring From Reading Systems
The reading system requirements have now been split out into a new specification called, appropriately enough, EPUB Reading Systems 3.3 which is also a working draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-rs-33/
Separating authoring and reading systems also has the side benefit of having fewer documents to take through the W3C process and better isolation when it comes to showing how the specifications can be implemented.
What Stage of the Process Have You Reached?
We’re just getting ready to wrap up the working draft stage and move to a candidate recommendation (the links above won’t change when we do). What this means is that our focus will change from revising the technical details of the specifications to showing that the specifications can be implemented by authors and reading systems. There is a testing task force working on creating tests for all the normative requirements and then during the candidate recommendation stage we’ll be looking for implementations to prove the tests.
How Does This Affect the EPUB Accessibility 1.1 Specification?
The Accessibility 1.1 revision is very similar to EPUB 3.3 in that there are not a lot of major changes from 1.0. The new version incorporates the text improvements that were made to EPUB 1.0 as part of making it an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 23761:2021), but those changes were editorial in nature (i.e., the IDPF and ISO specifications read differently, but have the same base requirements).
The most significant change that people will need to be aware of is that we’re now allowing conformance to adapt to the latest versions of WCAG 2 as they become recommendations (the Accessibility 1.0 specification only allowed conformance to WCAG 2.0). You still have to minimally meet WCAG 2.0 Level A to meet the base requirements of our specification, but publishers are now encouraged to conform to the latest recommended version of WCAG 2 (which is 2.1 right now, but 2.2 is coming). Level AA conformance is also recommended. This means that there is now a new conformance identifier that publishers will have to use in the metadata that adapts to what WCAG version and level you have met. The details are explained here: https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y-11/#sec-conf-reporting-pub.
Other minor tweaks include the separation of the page navigation and media overlay objectives into separate sections to make them easier to read, but they aren’t different from the 1.0 specification.
Will EPUBCheck be Updated to Support EPUB 3.3?
The next version of EPUBCheck, the free command-line EPUB checking tool, will provide complete support for checking conformance to the EPUB 3.3 standard. The Public Beta version is due out shortly.
The DAISY Consortium is delighted to once again support the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference by creating accessible digital versions of the conference materials, and offering them for download in HTML, DAISY 2.02 and EPUB formats. Thanks to the CSUN Conference Team for making the information available in advance to facilitate conversion.
This page contains a complete lists of downloadable files, which are shown with their approximate size. Downloads start immediately after a link is selected.
All session information should be reviewed alongside the addendum on the CSUN website for changes to the schedule.
Entire conference program and menus
HTML version .zip file (3MB)
EPUB text only version .zip file (0.6MB)
EPUB text and audio version .zip file (176MB)
Conference information in DAISY 2.02 format [.zip files]
General Information (12.6MB)
Pre-conference Sessions (3.2MB)
Featured Presentations (0.7MB)
Advertisements (3.4MB)
Combined Sessions (33MB)
Tuesday Sessions (6.8MB)
Wednesday Sessions (9.8MB)
Thursday Sessions (9.2MB)
Friday Sessions (6.6MB)
Speaker Index (7.6MB)
Exhibitor Directory (20.8MB)
Exhibitor Directory by Category (7.6MB)
Quick Guide By Date (7.8MB)
Quick Guide By Room (8.4MB)
Quick Guide By Topic (32MB)
Fresh Bites – In Room Dining (2.4MB)
nFuse (6.6MB)
Slice Pizzeria (0.5MB)
The Market (1MB)
Direct Access via Reading Solutions
The conference materials are also being made freely available directly through reading solutions including:
- Dolphin EasyReader (all platforms), Supernova and GuideConnect.
- Redshelf
- Vitalsource
February saw the 4th iteration of the hugely successful NNELS Accessible Publishing Summit, held virtually for the 2nd time. One of the benefits of being held virtually was evident in the number of international delegates who joined the summit to share their expertise and experiences with the Canadian publishing industry. For the 1st time NNELS made some of the main sessions available via YouTube and the links for these sessions can be found below. What this summit does so well is to bring together communities of people to discuss and share ideas on accessible publishing via panel sessions, presentations, moderated group sessions and working group sessions.
Read our more thorough Summit Overview on Inclusive Publishing
Tester Demos
One of the most successful elements of this summit has always been the NNELS tester demonstrations and this year was no exception:
- The first demo concentrated on Reflowable EPUB and was presented by Ka Li (NNELS)
- The second demo focused on Fixed Layout EPUB and was presented by Mélissa Castilloux (NNELS)
Panels
- The User Perspectives Panel asked many useful questions of the panel such as: How do you read? What does your access toolkit look like? What does timely and meaningful access mean for you? Lots of thoughts and ideas were presented in response to the question: What is the one issue or factor which impacts your reading experience that you would most like to see prioritized within the reading ecosystem? Answers included: access to sample chapters, DRM, reading apps to improve accessibility for screen readers, structure always, one app for everything.
- The Industry Updates and Expert Perspectives Panel was a chance for accessibility organizations to update delegates on what is new and what is on the horizon for accessible publishing. DAISY was pleased to update everyone on current activities and it was helpful to hear from others on this panel about all the good progress being made.
- The International Panel was an interesting session speaking with panelists from Italy, Australia, Brazil and the UK, highlighting the very different landscapes that we all work in and the various challenges in these markets.
Working Group Sessions
Day three allowed the delegates to get down to the nitty gritty in the 3 hour-long working group sessions . We are looking forward to the notes and resources that result from these stimulating sessions where everyone felt very comfortable in expressing their opinions and contributing to discussions. Creating the right atmosphere for this type of working experience is undoubtedly where NNELS have excelled at the summit. Congratulations to all involved.
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