E-reader makers request exemption from accessibility standards
Tue, Aug. 6th, 2013 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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access_fandomOnly indirectly related to fandom (I know plenty of fen who've switched to ereaders for much of their reading), but strongly related to accessibility: Amazon, Kobo and Sony are requesting that the FCC exempt dedicated e-readers (PDF) from the requirement to be accessible.
"The public interest would be served by granting this petition because the theoretical ACS ability of e-readers is irrelevant to how the overwhelming majority of users actually use the devices," it says, as if any accessible features were granted because those were how the majority used them.
It goes on to say "E-readers simply are not designed, built, or marketed for ACS, and the public understands the distinction between e-readers and general-purpose tablets." I... have my doubts about that, especially since e-reader manufacturers work really hard to imply that there's no difference, just BW e-readers and color e-readers.
Most of the functions that would require ACS don't exist on many ereaders; I don't agree that means the rest of them shouldn't require it. I suspect this is a ploy to get Kindles into schools without having to be accessible to students with disabilities. Possibly, though, it's exactly what it says it is: an attempt to allow browsers and social media software on limited-use devices without holding them to the same standards as phones and tablets.
ETA1: changed link to the FCC page with embedded PDF.
ETA2: There's a request for comments that last through THIS MONTH. Comments Due: September 3, 2013
"Comments and oppositions are due within 30 days from the date of this Public Notice. Reply comments are due within 10 days after the time for filing comments and oppositions has expired."
"The public interest would be served by granting this petition because the theoretical ACS ability of e-readers is irrelevant to how the overwhelming majority of users actually use the devices," it says, as if any accessible features were granted because those were how the majority used them.
It goes on to say "E-readers simply are not designed, built, or marketed for ACS, and the public understands the distinction between e-readers and general-purpose tablets." I... have my doubts about that, especially since e-reader manufacturers work really hard to imply that there's no difference, just BW e-readers and color e-readers.
Most of the functions that would require ACS don't exist on many ereaders; I don't agree that means the rest of them shouldn't require it. I suspect this is a ploy to get Kindles into schools without having to be accessible to students with disabilities. Possibly, though, it's exactly what it says it is: an attempt to allow browsers and social media software on limited-use devices without holding them to the same standards as phones and tablets.
ETA1: changed link to the FCC page with embedded PDF.
ETA2: There's a request for comments that last through THIS MONTH. Comments Due: September 3, 2013
"Comments and oppositions are due within 30 days from the date of this Public Notice. Reply comments are due within 10 days after the time for filing comments and oppositions has expired."
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-07 12:53 am (UTC)I used to do manual accessibility tagging for PDFs; it's a pain. (The auto-features have gotten better over the years but the manual corrections haven't.) But almost all commercial PDFs--and anything produced from Word or InDesign or Powerpoint--will at least be able to be read out loud by a text reader. Complex books with charts may need more careful processing to be really accessible, but the main body text is *easy* to throw into speech software.
PDFs made from scanned images need to be OCR'd, and how well that works depends on the quality of the image and the complexity of the text. Scanned business documents? Work fine. Scanned art books with multiple columns and callout text boxes in weird fonts? Much less fine.