Starting the Accessible Publishing Journey

We're in conversation with Laura Brady, Accessibility Consultant about the importance of creating and remediating content to be accessible for all users. She shares tips and guidance for how to get on the journey towards accessibility, providing helpful resources that can serve as a useful roadmap to guide people, whether they are new to accessible publishing or have been doing this work for some time.

Transcript

Nicole Tomassi: Welcome to Westchester Words Education, Ed Tech and Publishing.

I'm Nicole Tomassi and on today's episode I have the pleasure of speaking with Laura Brady, Accessibility Consultant.

Laura's priority has always been to put users first. With more than 25 years of trade publishing experience and working in digital publishing for the past 15 years, she creates and converts ebooks as well as trains publishers on accessible workflows.

In addition, Laura writes a blog that helps developers to work more accessibly as well as consulting with service organizations about how to publish inclusively while worrying about everyone's reading experience.

Laura is a sought after consultant, trainer and public speaker advocating with government funders, accessible library organizations and publisher associations for inclusive publishing.

She actively shares her knowledge, building communities and calling stakeholders in through community groups like eProduction, the Accessible Publishing Summit and ebookcraft, in addition to serving on the Ebound and Accessible Books Consortium's Board of Directors.

Before we begin today's discussion, information shared in this podcast is not intended to serve as legal advice. We strongly encourage publishers and others in the space to seek appropriate legal counsel for the specific steps that their company may be required to take in order to comply with the European Accessibility act as well as other legislation that currently exists or is brought into existence regarding the creation and distribution of materials that they are publishing.

Laura, it is my pleasure to welcome you to Westchester Words.

Laura Brady: Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Nicole Tomassi: Great.

Nicole Tomassi: Before we get into the nuts and bolts of accessibility and the European Accessibility act specifically, may I begin by asking what drew you to the inclusive publishing and teaching environment?

Laura Brady: Ah, so such a good question. It was actually working with puppies who are training to be service dogs. Many, many years ago, my family signed up to be puppy sitters for an organization that trains service dogs and that was very fun, very engaging work that started a snowball effect in my entire family's lives about being more inclusive and thinking about ways to call people into inclusivity, including through things like service animals. But I also helped program some conferences and in programming those conferences I was always well aware of needing to fold in accessibility concerns to the way we talked about about ebooks and digital publishing and through the course of that realized that there were a lot of holes to fill and went about the intellectual exercise of trying to help fill those holes.

Once you start, it's kind of addictive when you think about helping people publish in a way that meets the needs of every single reader out there. Not only does it snowball, but it sort of draws other people into that environment and then with the legislative impulse, of course there is. You know, this is what a lot of people in publishing are thinking about.

It's what everyone in publishing should be thinking about. But, you know, part of the work of things like this podcast is to pull more people into that work and talk about how thinking about accessibility and publishing accessibly is both good for the bottom line, good for branding, good for your readership. You know, it's the full package.

Nicole Tomassi: In a way, it's holistic. Yes. And what a fascinating way to enter into the space through working with service dogs.

Laura Brady: There's a through line in my life.

Nicole Tomassi: I think a lot of us can relate to that.

So specifically as it concerns the European Accessibility act. This legislation was passed in 2019 and comes into effect in June of this year. So with that legislation, what are the top two or three concerns that you've been hearing about in your discussions with publishers, content producers and others in the space?

Laura Brady: For sure, a lot of people are worried about their front list, but they're also worried about their backlist and worried about what that means.

And then I think that there's a lot of people thinking or talking or asking questions about the opt outs as well, which, you know, it seems to me is the wrong question to ask.

But so for sure, people are worried about publishing accessibly for their front list. They want those titles to go on sale and to be available in as many markets as possible around the world the minute that they're published.

So there are a lot of publishers trying to work out the kinks in their workflows so that their front list is published accessibly from day one. And I would say that there's a fair number of people who are getting there for sure.

But then thinking about the backlist, which is a little bit of an open question, some territories in the EU are allowing for a five year moratorium on backlist, giving publishers time to polish those up and to get them ready.

Some aren't. So there's a little bit of balancing of which marketplaces you're going to get into in the EU and where they stand on the backlist. There's a variety of approaches to this and remediating the backlist is a huge set of questions and problems and concerns how to do it.

What do you do with the clunkiest, oldest epub twos that maybe have images for their tables or that kind of thing? There's a lot that needs to be done. Even when you think about writing alt text for a publisher's potentially substantial backlist that can be a daunting prospect.

So then that brings in questions of thinking about things like maybe using AI to help to write those alt text for the backlist and how do we fold that in?

And potentially some ethical concerns, but also some production concerns. AI isn't all that good at image description just yet and still needs humans to go over what that has produced.

AI is not a good solution to some of those backlist problems. It can be a helper, but it's not a solution. And so remediating the backlist still remains an open set of concern.

And then the third one I pointed to was the opt out. I read a Great article via LinkedIn the other day about opt outs. You know, there are several ways that you can opt out of the eaa.

So if remediating for accessibility calls a fundamental alteration in that book, then that book is not subject to the EAA. Or if you're a tiny publisher with less than 2 million euro in revenue.

I think, obviously I'm not a lawyer, so you should consult the legislation. But tiny publishers also don't have to meet the needs of the aeaa. That said, I think that those are the wrong questions to be asking.

And the questions that publishers should be thinking about are how can I meet accessibility minimum standards, even though I'm a small publisher, even though my content is more complex or visual in nature, and so meeting the needs of the EAA is a burden.

There's still baby steps that can be taken to remediate content or even to publish frontlist content that falls under the rubric of those opt outs, but can still be published as accessibly as possible under the circumstances.

And I try to push publishers to thinking about it in those terms instead.

Nicole Tomassi: Basically, the guidance that you give is get on the road to making your content as accessible as possible.

Start with the front list and work through your backlist, you know, in a way that makes sense for your staff, your budgets. Don't opt out, opt in.

Laura Brady: Exactly. Yes, accessibility, especially if you're newish to the journey, it can feel extraordinarily overwhelming. I have to worry about aria roles, I have to write image descriptions, I have to think about structure and navigation and all these tools that are coming at me.

It can feel extremely overwhelming. So what I always tell people is just start, take some baby steps and sort of do away at that and get your staff trained up and, you know, just start.

Nicole Tomassi: Which kind of leads me to the next thing that we're going to discuss. You along with Keith Snyder from typeflow and my colleagues, Tyler Carey, And Scott Keeney, you all recently collaborated on a white paper about exactly this, giving guidance and information resources about taking those steps on the accessibility journey that people could use almost as like a roadmap,

if you will, to take the steps that they need to take, whether they're just starting this journey or they're a little further into it. I'm just curious what brought you all together in determining that, yes, there is a document like this that needs to be out there providing this information in such a succinct way.

What was it that motivated this?

Laura Brady: Yeah, so we, you know, we got together, the four of us, and we were talking about ways to help people into doing the work, into undertaking accessible publishing and thinking about it.

And there are a lot of resources out there. I swear, every time you turn around, there's another webinar or workshop or blog post or something. There are a lot of resources out there when it comes to accessible publishing.

So how do you pick through the weeds and how do you figure out what is going to meet your needs and why? We thought it would be a good idea to write this white paper is one to write an executive summary that will really, I hope, help motivate publishers to just start.

This is not something that you can plug your nose and not think about. You have to get underway. There is the legislative impulse of the EAA, but there's also, in the United States context, Title 2 is coming of the ADA.

There's so many acronyms in accessible publishing. Sometimes I get them confused in my brain.

I'm from Canada. There's lots of things in Canada that govern accessible publishing. The Accessible Canada act and the AODA Accessibility for Ontario with Disabilities Act. There are lots of pieces of legislation, so that impulse is there.

But why did we undertake this white paper? And how does it stand out among the kind of the noise of all the resources in the accessible publishing space. And one of the ways that I think that this is a little bit different than other resources out there is that we have provided like concrete guidance for both editorial and production staff to test their output,

to think about how there's lists in there that you can go and check things off as you test maybe a backlist epub for what needs to be fixed up or what could we could let lie.

We've walked people through the tool tools that they can use. We've also walked people through, okay, so I have altpact, but do I need a long description for this table or chart and those kinds of things are answered there, or we've gotten some way to answering them there.

And then we've pointed to other resources that can help people go even deeper if they need to. So there's this executive summary that I think could be very helpful for a wide variety of people, including the extremely non technical in the crowd about why accessible publishing is worth it.

And if you haven't gotten started, it's worth, you know, stepping on the gas now. But there's also these lists of ways to improve what you're already doing and to check, say the EPUB you made yesterday against Accessibility metric.

Those lists are absolutely going to help editorial and production staff make better content.

Nicole Tomassi: And the one thing I would add to that is that these, these checklists and these resources to check those epubs, a lot of them are either low cost or free of charge and they're through trusted organizations like W3C or Daisy or Benetech, some of which we are members of.

I just want to disclaim that here, but it's not. You don't. It's. It's more that you need to invest the time in getting yourself up to speed on what you need to be doing.

It may not necessarily be a financial investment on top of.

Laura Brady: Exactly. Yeah. And the white paper obviously is a free download. Anyone can have at it. It's a nice accessible EPUB that anyone can consume. And then we have a fairly succinct set of resources at the bottom of the white paper to point people in new directions as well.

Didn't want to overwhelm people with resources. Hopefully it's useful. I would be very happy to hear that it's found its market and that it's helping people along this journey.

Nicole Tomassi: What I can share is that we do have it up on our website and I believe you also have a link to it on your website, Laura. And I've certainly seen a lot of take up on downloading the asset and hopefully they are finding the information helpful.

So, you know, to echo Laura's point, if you want to send either of us an email, and we'd love to hear from you, Laura, as part of what I shared in the introduction, you teach about inclusive publishing and how people can either get started on that journey or embed themselves in it and keep up to date on developments in this space.

And from what I understand, you are a guest lecturer at a couple of universities, including Toronto Metropolitan and Simon Fraser. So I'm just curious, do you find that the individuals coming to this, whether they're undergrads or whether they are professionals that have been in the publishing environment for some time.

Do you find that there's a better understanding of the awareness of why these reading materials should be inclusive? And looking at the younger generation, or the gen zers, if you will, are they more adept at developing content that's born accessible and why we need to have accessible materials?

Laura Brady: Yeah, this is a really good question. So I'll just explain a little bit about what I teach. I teach in the graphic Communications Management program at TMU Toronto Metropolitan University. And that's undergrad, so that's to undergrads who are learning about.

It's not, it's not a program for graphic design. It's for people who want to be production staff basically in various contexts. And what I find, particularly when teaching undergrads in that program, is that I don't have to make the case for inclusivity.

Those students already get it.

They understand the need for both diversity, equity and inclusion. And when I tell them about accessibility, they nod their head and they understand. And I don't have to spend any time trying to pull them along.

They're just like, oh yeah, I need to learn about this. How do I make this HTML accessible? Okay, yep, let's move on to the next thing. Css. Yeah, let's do it.

There's less sort of talking them into it now, whether that's a digital native or a Gen Z thing, I'm not quite sure. It doesn't mean that they're more technologically adept.

There's still a lot of teaching that needs to be done. They don't have to talk them into it. I also teach in the publishing certificate program at CMU and to publishing students at Simon Fraser University.

And there's not that there's more having to talk people into it, but I do have to lay out the business case cases for having to do the work to publish accessibly a little bit more.

I think for. In the publishing certificate program, that's often teaching people who've already been in the workplace for a few years and they may be already worked in publishing and they maybe understand some of the challenges to get their colleagues to do the work or to pull their colleagues into this work.

So there's. I do have to spend more time sort of laying out the who, why, where and the laws around that sort of thing. There's less, oh yeah, okay, let's do that.

It's more like, okay, how do I, how do I talk my coworkers into this? How do I talk my boss into this? How do I talk this next publisher that I'M going to work for into doing this work.

So one of the courses I teach at CMU is specifically for postgrad, and it's only on accessible publishing. And we're not actually doing any coding or anything in that class.

We're talking about the accessible publishing landscape and maybe a little bit about the disability justice landscape as well. You know, we talk about curb cut effects and universal design and inclusive design, and people are hungry for that kind of information.

But there is definitely a little bit more of having to make the case for that work than I would have to do with undergrads. So there is a bit of a disconnect there between those two groups of potential students.

But I would say people are nonetheless really right for. For hearing about this work and hearing about how to do it and carry it out and how to sort of evangelize it as well.

Nicole Tomassi: So you find that after you've made the case very clear for them and they understand it, that they go out and they become an ambassador for inclusive publishing.

Laura Brady: It's all part of my master plan to create a whole bunch of publishing workers who understand accessible publishing issues. Yes, yes,that's the idea. Now, people who are taking that class are not being told to take it or paid to take it or whatever. They're opting into it. So I need to try to reach the people who aren't opting into it as well.

And that's a different ball of wax, as they say.

Nicole Tomassi: Well, if we can chip away at it bit by bit with the ambassadors and the work that you're doing and that organizations are doing to explain why this is important for society as a whole, I think we'll get there sooner than later.

Laura Brady: Yeah, fingers crossed.

Nicole Tomassi: Fingers crossed. We only have a couple of minutes left, Laura. So what is it that you feel people should take forward with them about inclusive or accessible publishing?

Laura Brady: As I mentioned earlier, I really do genuinely think that, you know, just start baby steps and sort of eat away at the question of accessible publishing. But one of the other things I would like to say is that this is a dynamic space, and sometimes standards change and adjust to technologies,and things are vibrant and dynamic. Things are moving in the space. And so what I would love to tell people is that you should sign up for a couple of newsletters that are specific to this space, and that will help you understand what's changing and keep you up to date.

So the inclusivepublishing.org has a really excellent newsletter that only goes out once a month. Inclusivepublishing.org is run by the folks at the Daisy Consortium, and they are absolute experts in this space.

And so if something changes or there's new tools or there's new standards or specifications, you will absolutely hear about it in that newsletter. And you'll also hear about events and workshops and webinars and what the Daisy Consortium is maybe doing at the London Book Fair or at the Frankfurt Book Fair, that kind of thing. So it's strongly recommend signing up for a newsletter or two like the one@inclusivepublishing.org I also am involved through my work with Ebound Canada in the Accessible Publishing Learning Network, which is APLN ca and this is a plain language explainer of lots of the issues around accessible publishing.

And that's a really useful resource. And they also have a newsletter that goes out at maximum, just once a month, so you're not going to get a ton of emails.

I always feel a little bit reluctant about people telling people to sign up for emails because I know email is a black hole. But these newsletters don't go out very often and they're very, very useful.

So that's one way to keep up on what's changing and moving in this space and how to learn more. As legislation bears down. This is more important than ever.

Nicole Tomassi: Agreed. And we'll include links to those newsletters or to those websites on our website. And also I encourage listeners to visit Laura's as well, and we'll link out to that from here.

So there are lots of resources and get up to speed on the information and learn, learn, learn. Laura, any closing thoughts that you'd like to share before we wrap up here?

Laura Brady: Well, I mean, people who've opted into this podcast and listened all the way to the end, they maybe already have an investment in accessible publishing. But share the podcast with your colleagues and talk them into listening to this sort of stuff, because it is really important.

Publishers may get a finish, a slap on their hands if they're not paying attention to accessibility. And so share this with your colleagues and share some of these links with your colleagues.

Nicole Tomassi: Laura, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today and to share this information about inclusive publishing and why it's important both for publishers and for consumers.

It's something that everybody should be aware of because it touches all of us.

And as I said earlier, I invite everybody to visit Laura's website. Laura, you want to just share that address?

Laura Brady: Yep, it's Laura Brady. L A U R A B R A D Y CA. 

Nicole Tomassi: Laura has lots of resources and information on her website and you can reach out to her there. If you want to take this conversation a little further and dive deeper into the inclusive publishing pool. You can also Visit our website westchesterpublishingservices.com we have a page dedicated with resources about making your content more accessible.

There's links to the White Paper, webinars, podcasts, articles, so go in there, check it out and let us know what you think of everything and how we can help.

Nicole Tomassi: Thanks again, Laura.

Laura Brady: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Nicole Tomassi: Thank you for listening to this episode of Westchester Words. If you're looking for previous episodes or want to read additional content that has been shared by some of our guests, please Visit our websites westchesterpublishingservices.com and westchester education services.com for an international perspective, check out our sister podcast, Westchester Words UK and International,

available on the Westchester Education UK website, westchester education.co.uk or wherever you stream podcasts. We love hearing from our listeners and welcome your emails estchesterwords@westchester edsvcs.com tell us what you enjoy hearing on our podcast or suggest topics that we can cover in future episodes.

Speaking of future episodes, I look forward to having you join us for the next episode of Westchester Words, when we'll be having another engaging conversation about a topic of interest to the education, ed tech and publishing communities.

Until then, stay safe, be well and stay tuned.