When we talk about making a website accessible, we’re talking about two separate but related projects: making the site accessible, and making sure the content (journal articles, books, and other digital objects) is accessible.
So how can Literatum help?
Making your site accessible
Here are some of the ways we help ensure your site remains accessible:
- Our Page Builder widgets provide the framework for accessible sites; widgets share common code across all your pages.
- Our design approach uses themes as the basis for new sites; all UX 3.0 themes are designed to be accessible, and customizations must keep them accessibility compliant.
- Our automated release tests validate WCAG 2.1 level AA accessibility.
- Specific modules also have accessibility goals—for example, the eReader is 98% compliant to WCAG 2.1 AA—and the mandates of their product owners include compliance improvement goals.
We are experienced in bringing sites to full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. As an example, Literatum publisher Taylor & Francis was awarded the 2021 ABC International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing.
Keeping your content accessible
Here are some of the ways Literatum makes sure that the work you do to make your content accessible is fully delivered on your site.
Our new Atypon AXEL technology and Page Builder widget convert XML to HTML to deliver rich accessible, discoverable, and reflowable HTML pages; generate ePub3 from your XML; and encourage readers to access content in ePub rather than PDF.
Why does this matter? Because while newer options can improve PDF accessibility, a reflowable ePub will always be more accessible than a PDF!
A PDF is optimized for print output, with fixed layout and limited accessibility features. An ePub file can offer accessibility features including
- reflowable text that adjusts to the reader’s screen size and settings;
- customizable fonts, type sizes, and text/background colors;
- text-to-speech options, including language tags; and
- screen-reader-compatible HTML tables and MathML equations.
Our accessible eReader displays both ePub and PDF content without requiring readers to download files. Our eReader team has been preparing for the release of WCAG 2.2 and engaging with the DAISY Consortium for a full accessibility review.
Features in development
Our product teams are working on further accessibility improvements, including leveraging Atypon’s award-winning AI technology to improve UX and SEO through one-sentence summaries, AI-assisted alt text for images, and image enhancements.