 Hi, welcome to Fixed Layout EPUB Accessibility Demonstration. My name is Milsa Castillou and I am an Accessibility Consultant for NELS, and I'm talking to you from Chaudjage, known as Montreal, where I live. I would like to begin by acknowledging that I am located on unceded Indigenous lands and that Chaudjage is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations. This presentation aims to give you a little insight into accessible Fixed Layout electronic publications. So for today I will start by a simple introduction to what is Fixed Layout. After that I will be explaining the limits of this format in terms of accessibility. And once we have established these limits and we understand the context where Fixed Layout is appropriate or not, I will show you some elements you should include to address some common accessibility issues. The presentation will be followed by a 10 minute long Q&A session and also the PowerPoint will be made available after the summit with all links to online resources for more information. What is a Fixed Layout EPUB? It is mainly a format of digital publication where the print layout is preserved in the digital edition. It is somehow the opposite of reflowable EPUB such as presented by my colleague Kai in the previous demonstration. For people who are not familiar with the difference between Fixed and Reflowable Layout, we could say that Fixed Layout EPUB is comparable to EPUB format where the layout would stay consistently the same. On the other hand, Reflowable EPUB could be compared to a regular web page where you can change font type, size, and color and where also you could zoom in and out while the content automatically adjusts to the window and I will be demonstrating these two things in a minute. Advantage and Limitation of Fixed Layout Fixed Layout has its advantages such as total control over the book display for the publishers. This is why books such as children books, comic books, photo books are produced mostly in this format. The format enables a heavy usage of graphic and design elements. That being said, these advantages have a pretty heavy cost in terms of accessibility. There are two main issues that will be discussed today. First is the fact that readers can't adjust the visual layout to their needs. So aside from making sure the content is as readable as possible, it is not possible to fully remediate this issue even while following the best guideline ever. So it is important to be aware of this before considering the second main issue is related to screen reader user. So in Fixed Layout, most of the time each word is usually wrap in span tag. So the screen reader would read each word one by one and we'll look at this issue closer now. So let's first talk about visual adjustments. I would like to illustrate the difference between Reflowable and Fixed Layout book in terms of the visual adjustment possibilities. So here I have a Reflowable book and I'm at chapter one. And the first paragraph is written in very, very small font and this is an issue. I can't read it, it's too small. So what I would do is to go in the reader preference and I'm in the eReader vital bookshelf and then I would choose the text size that I prefer. So for me now I would choose the larger one. So here we go. So what's happening is that the text has been enlarged and it's also been adapt to the size of the window. Here again we have another issue, the line spacing between the line is too small so it's all crammed together. So it's easy. I go again in the reader preference and I choose a larger line spacing and here we go. We have like a really readable text and this really illustrates the possibility of Reflowable Layout to be adjusted to the reader needs. It is a very different story indeed when it comes to Fixed Layout. So here we go. So here we have a Fixed Layout book with a very similar issue. We have a paragraph that is in such a small font that it's really hard to read. So let's do the same thing that we did for the Reflowable and go to the reader preference. Here we don't have the same feature to enlarge the font. The only possibility is to enlarge the page. That means the font is not going to adapt to the same size of the page. That is problematic for readability. For instance you may have to go from right to left and then right to left again to be able to read like line by line the text. And also depends on the quality of the image but the text may not be readable at all. So that illustrates the issue that can emerge from not having the possibility to adapt content. So we will see it soon a way to make the font as readable as possible. But keep in mind that with Fixed Layout the reader doesn't have the possibility to adapt the font to their need. And now let's look at a small video about the Spantag issue. Books that allow for Reflowable content are usually easy to navigate and read with assistive technology. When play is pressed the content is well narrated. In this text we have studied the effects of a number of invasions, conquests and waves of settlement in the history of English. In contrast books produced in Fixed Layout presented choppy and disjointed reading experience. Introduction. Capital T. Industry. You surely have noticed that the reading experience with Fixed Layout is very choppy. This is because in order to keep the layout each word will be put between Spantag. So that means it makes it unreadable with a screen reader. There is some way to remediate this issue such as putting the full sentence between Spantag instead of each word. However keep in mind that there is readability issue with screen reader for a Fixed Layout book. In short Fixed Layout Advantage have a heavy class in terms of readability and accessibility. Especially for people with print disability therefore you should choose wisely. I added to this slide the two button meme. The first panel show two big red button called Fixed Layout and Reflowable. The second panel show a man sweating profusely trying to decide which button to press. And the caption says Fixed Layout may lead to total devastation. To avoid a catastrophe here's some advice to decide if your book content justify the user Fixed Layout or not. So if your book layouts must stay the same because it has meaning in itself and I'm talking here about the layout you can use Fixed Layout. We can think here example of a comic book that is reliant on its organization and appearance for meaning. The frame of the page decides the orientation and the panel's position actually convey meaning. Therefore Reflowability would affect the ability of the reader to comprehend the content. That would be an excellent reason to do a Fixed Layout. A children picture book would also justify a user Fixed Layout. On the other hand a novel with mostly text and some images here and there does not justify the user Fixed Layout. Even a book with many images within the textual content would not justify for Fixed Layout because the layout does not contain meaning in itself. Now that we know the accessibility limits of Fixed Layout and that we should use it only if necessary we can continue safely. Let's imagine our book need total layout control how to make sure it does not lead to total devastation in its accessibility. So here are some recommendations for more accessible Fixed Layouts. The first key point if I can say it like that is alternative text or image description. Fixed Layout have usually a lot or even consists entirely of images. Ensuring that the information conveyed by images is accessible to all reader is top priority when making Fixed Layout as accessible as possible. So having good image description is super important. The image description guideline is the same for Fixed Layout and Reflowable Layout. However, Fixed Layout are susceptible to have some specific challenges when it comes to describing and I have two examples for you. My first example of complex images concern context and structure. So I have included a strip of my Felda comic book and my Felda is looking at an earth globe while her father read the newspaper. It has four panel and in the first she asked where are we? In the second panel the father says here see while pointing at Argentina at the bottom of the globe. In the third panel my Felda look absolutely shocked and even scared and say but then we live upside down. The fourth panel with my Felda the globe and her father is now upside down. My Felda says my word I think from now on I'll feel more attached to this ground. This strip is a good example of content that need a description that require to go further than describing the individual images. This strip needs a description that take in consideration the spatial organization of the panel. The fact that the last panel is upside down revealed that my Felda literally feel her world has been turned upside down and because of this we now understand why she say that she feel more attached to the ground and also we can understand the comical aspect of this strip. The second example of complex images concern image where there is many element in one image. For the second example I have taken an image from the Smurf comic book and the image show a riot at a football match and there is many thing happening at once. There is some Smurf football player that look confused on the pitch while on the crowd there is many Smurf fighting, shouting to each other. There is some object being thrown. There are many dialogue bubble across the image saying foul, cheat, same to you and on. This kind of image there is many different action happening at once is actually quite a common place in fixed layout. So the challenge here is to describe the image and provide context given that the description is not attached with one single item. These images would require a long and complex description. I encourage you to go look at the guide to image description on accessiblepublishing.ca for more information about image description. Another important element for fixed layout accessibility is good navigation. Many of the EPUB accessibility feature found in reflowable EPUB can still be used in fixed layout. The first step for great navigation is happening in the EPUB navigation document which is a mandatory component of EPUB package. It allows publisher to include a human and machine readable navigation layer which increase usability and accessibility for the reader. Here are three main features to keep in mind. Adding a table of content, a page list and landmarks. Adding section marker and landmark to the major section of the publication example cover page table of content can further increase the accessibility. Here a very very short demo of navigation in a fixed layout book. Here I have open the fixed layout book called The Adventure of Polkadot made by Lia and on the left side we can see some table of content that had been added into the navigation file. I can click to the cover page on the title page and I will be redirected to the title page copyright, dedication and another part of the book. So this is what the nav file allows you to do in your e-reader. Also if you add page list I can go on the top right and write down page 7 and enter and I will be redirected to page 7. I could also write page 1 and be redirected again to page 1. So this is a small demo of the navigation possibility with fixed layout. Now let's talk about reading order. Each page of a fixed layout EPUB is an individual XHTML page and pages are presented sequentially in the order that they are listed in the spine element of the package document. An EPUB needs to offer access to the content in some specific order. This is quite obvious you wouldn't want an EPUB that started by the conclusion and finished by the introduction. It is usually quite straightforward also within the textual content order as it would go from left to right and top bottom. The issue is that many fixed layout publications don't necessarily have an obvious reading order or the logical progression through the content don't follow the regular one. You can find design where there is multiple readable objects on the same page in a quite chaotic manner. Here as an example is again the smurf football riot where there is many dialogue bubble. The reading order is not obvious. For viewer, the visual page, the reading order can be inferred by different visual cue including size, style and font. Without the properly coded reading order the screen reader which rely on machine readable information would read in a regular order which can make it very confusing. It is therefore important to take time to ensure that thoughts has been put into the reading order for the textual content. Accessibility recommendation. The recommended best practice solution here is to adjust the reading order of the elements within the Xhtml page and preserve the design using CSS. Design CSS. Semantic structure in the Xhtml page. Next is a structural hierarchy. So headings are a key way for reader who use assistive technology to get a feel for how the book is laid out. It is important to be able to know when a new section begins and navigate efficiently between sections. Therefore a predictable structure of cascading headings is crucial to any accessible EPUB. In a book, level 1 heading should be used for major sections such as chapter and a title of subsection within chapter should be marked up with level 2 heading and etc. So now let's talk about readability. Readability of fixed layout content is so important for accessibility and particularly for user with low vision or learning disabilities. Readability could be defined as an easy and enjoyable reading experience. As I mentioned earlier, fixed layout does not allow visual adaptability and sentence reader can't customize the textual content to their need and preferences. It is so important to consider best practices to create books that are as readable as possible. The first piece of readability is fund selection. So there isn't a specific fund that is good for all user needs, but certain fund characteristics would increase legibility. So when planning fund selection in fixed layout, consider the following. First, the fund type. There is no specific fund type and again no one size fit for all, but one recommendation would be to use fund type without serif, that augment legibility. After fund sizing, a 16 point fund would be sufficient for most content and if there is a lot of textual content, it is actually recommended to consider a larger body fund size like 18 point to ensure readability. At last, the fund weight. Using a two light fund can be an accessibility issue and make it hard for some user to read. Similarly, content that is too bold or heavy can also have its own issues. Next piece, color contrast. Here I have an example of a fixed layout book that have a readability issue. The book page consists of an image displaying a bulldog waiting to get on the couch. At the bottom of the image, there is a paragraph of text in black font and the text background is a beige blanket with many folds, which makes it very difficult to read and cause readability issue. So here we need to consider color contrast. So it is important to follow the WCAG guideline for color contrast. This is especially important for visual content. It is strongly recommended to place text on a solid background or one that is neutral enough to increase legibility of the text. We could, for instance, improve the last example by adding a solid square background to the text content. Another piece of EPUB fixed layout accessibility is media overlays. Media overlay for EPUB allow for now publisher to synchronize text and audio. It would be possible, for instance, produce a children's book with human voice narration and attach the narration to the text. The other file would be divided in small clip and attached to their textual sentences or paragraph. Media overlay helps reader who would have difficulty following the text of a traditional book. It is also quite useful for children who are learning to read. Well coded, the reader can look at the text being highlighted in the same time that they are listening to the narration. For dyslexic children and even adults, having access to the content visually and verbally simultaneously is very beneficial for learning. So using Resolverly is a great way to make up for some of the format limitations. The last piece here is accessibility metadata. As we know, fixed layout are not perfectly accessible. It is therefore important to share the accessibility limits to the reader. And metadata are a bit like a list of ingredients at a supermarket on a food item. If, for example, you have a peanut allergy, you need to know before you buy it and certainly taste it. So in the same way, the allergic person will be so thankful to know they can't consume the product. Some readers will be happy to know in advance what to expect with the book. So as a producer and publisher, don't be shy if your book is not fully accessible, just indicate it in the metadata. In conclusion, here are some key points from this presentation. First, remember that fixed layout format pose many accessibility issues. Also, use fixed layout only if necessary. And if you do, follow the fixed layout accessibility guideline to improve image description, navigation, readability, and accessible metadata. I have some resources for you, so I encourage you to visit the website accessiblepublishing.ca for the Guide to Image Description. I encourage you to consult also the websites W3C, EPUB, Fixed Layout Accessibility and the WCAG Color Contrast guideline. Also, note that in the accessible publishing summit, Google Drive, there is a sample of fixed layout book. Thank you for listening, and now we can go to the discussion session.