Abstract
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is an EU directive that establishes accessibility requirements for different types of products and services. It aims to strengthen the rights of people with disabilities by providing access to products and services, including e-books, dedicated e-reading devices and software, digital rights management software, and e-commerce.
The EAA was enacted on 27 June 2019 to be forced from 28 June 2025.
This note aims to demonstrate that EPUB® standard meets all the technical requirements related to e-books, as defined by the EAA.
The methodology used is mapping the requirements of the EAA related to e-books to the EPUB Accessibility 1.1 specification.
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EPUB is the standard format for the creation and distribution of digital publications, including e-books.
The EPUB standard is based on the Open Web Platform: HTML, CSS, XML, MathML, and SVG are the core technologies used for content creation. This means that EPUB publications can be created with a high degree of accessibility simply through proper application of established techniques for digital accessibility.
The EPUB Accessibility standard [epub-a11y-11] addresses the following key areas for making EPUB publications fully accessible:
- conformance to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG);
- discoverability of accessibility features of publications;
- specific EPUB requirements for accessibility;
- evaluation and conformance reporting of accessible EPUB publications.
EPUB Accessibility 1.1 defines requirements for accessibility metadata. In this way consumers can examine the accessibility characteristics of the content and make well-informed decisions on whether an EPUB publication is suitable for each need before buying, borrowing, or downloading it. This metadata, attached to the digital file and distributed along the supply chain, ensures that persons with disabilities can be informed about the publication accessibility features. In order to make sure that information gets to the end user, it is critical that all players in the value chain do their part in managing metadata and displaying it to the end user (aggregators, e-commerce, reading solutions).
EPUB Accessibility 1.1 also defines the official accessibility criteria that EPUBs must adhere to, to claim conformance to the standard. These criteria offer EPUB creators a precise set of instructions to assess their content in terms of quality assurance.
EPUB Accessibility 1.1 does not target a single version of EPUB (most commercially available publications are in EPUB 3 or EPUB 2 format). It is designed to be applicable to all EPUB publications conforming to any version or profile, including future versions of the standard.
EPUB itself (the core format) allows the creation of both Reflowable and Fixed Layout publications.
In a Reflowable publication, the content adapts to the user's viewport. This includes the user's chosen graphical characteristics, such as font size, line spacing, text color, etc. In a Fixed Layout publication, each element has a fixed position because the publication is usually an exact replica of the paper version. In these publications the user does not have the ability to change the graphical characteristics, such as font size, line spacing, text color, etc.
EPUB Fixed Layout are mainly used for publications in which the meaning is layout-driven such as comics, illustrated children’s books, and art books.
Although it is technically possible to produce Fixed Layout publications with a good level of accessibility, it should be kept in mind that some accessibility requirements cannot be met. This is because of the limitation of the format, including the ability to change the graphical formatting of the text according to the user's needs.
EPUB Accessibility 1.1 defines the requirements necessary to make an EPUB publication fully accessible, including the requirements defined by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). It further adds requirements solely related to the specific characteristics of e-books and other digital publications.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) defines requirements for making many different types of digital content accessible. It addresses a wide range of situations and technologies, including multimedia content, interactive content, and basic web page structure.
EPUB Accessibility 1.1 defines how to apply WCAG specifically to EPUB publications, and defines additional requirements such as accessibility metadata, page navigation, audio-text synchronization and Digital Rights Management guidance.
The additional requirements defined by EPUB Accessibility are critical to fully comply with the requirements of the European Accessibility Act.