As of 2020, directives in multiple countries have been set by authorities to ensure that websites comply with the WCAG 2.1.
🇪🇺 In Europe, all websites within the public sector must be in compliance with the European Accessibility Act (EAA) Directive.
🇺🇸 In the US, this is known as ADA compliance.
💡 We recommend reading the legislation of your region to ensure you are living up to their standard.
Will iPaper become accessible?
Yes, in accordance with the recent Website Accessibility Directive legislation, we are working toward being more compliant by 2025.
Becoming accessible encompasses a number of changes to the iPaper product. These will be rolled out in phases, and we expect to be compliant by June 2025.
But read on to find out how you might be able to live up to the directive, while still using iPaper. 😊
Current accessibility features
iPaper now offers the following features that has improved the accessibility of Flipbooks:
Tab navigation focus
Visitors can now navigate more easily through interactive elements in the Flipbook interface using the tab key, including Enrichments, Popup Media Gallery, the cart and much more.
Tab focus is especially beneficial for users with motor or visual impairments, offering a more streamlined and manageable browsing experience.
Each tabbed item is highlighted, providing a “focus” indicator, and can be activated or manipulated via the keyboard.
Improved screen reader functionality
We’ve made several updates to support screen readers and text-to-speech (TTS) software, offering clearer, more descriptive interactions and improved navigation:
Text content
Text content on Flipbook pages is now surfaced as readable text, enabling screen readers to present main content directly.
Buttons and hover text
Screen readers can now announce button functions and hover text, providing users with an understanding of each interactive element and enhancing control.
Enrichments and product names
All clickable Enrichment types and product names are read aloud, offering guidance on available media galleries, product details, and cart options, making content easier to explore.
Brand name for logo
It is now possible to add alt text to the Brand logo. This text will be used as an ARIA label to be read by a screen reader. To accommodate customers with multiple brands, you can set this individually for each flipbook under the “Design” settings.
Product View text description
The Product View description text now has increased color contrast to pass accessibility validation. This is helpful users with visual impairments in trying to distinguish the description of the products from the background.
How will I know of the latest accessibility changes?
We will keep this Help article updated with the latest improvement. We also share all of our product and feature updates, including accessibility improvements, on our News page.
How will WAD compliance affect my Flipbooks?
We don’t have the full scope of changes at present. However, you should expect to enrich both existing and future Flipbooks with additional information.
While we're working on things, there are several things you can do to still be compliant while using iPaper.
What can you do to provide a web-accessible experience?
Create an Accessible Landing Page
Give your visitors the option to either view the standard flipbook or open the PDF directly in their browser.
Although we’ve implemented several accessibility improvements to the flipbook viewer, viewing the PDF directly may still be the preferred option in some cases. To enable this, simply add/viewpdf.ashxto the end of the Flipbook URL. This will allow the end-user to access the PDF immediately. Just make sure that PDF access is enabled in the Flipbook settings.
Acrobat Accessibility tool
Adobe Acrobat offers an accessibility checker to help you make sure your PDF is accessible.
The checker will try to point out, which elements and sections might not be accessible, giving you the chance to change it before uploading to iPaper.
💡 Design your Flipbooks for accessibility
You can already design your Flipbooks according to WCAG 2.1 recommendations. Here, you can access a wide variety of tips and tools to make sure you're designing for Web Accessibility:
If you use Adobe InDesign to create your PDFs, they offer a great guide on how to create accessible PDFs:
Documentation
Read about Web Accessibility here: https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-principles/
Read the European accessibility act here:https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202
Read the ADA compliance Act here:https://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/services/ada-compliance
There are ways to make your Flipbook experience more accessible, through manual enrichments. If you would like to learn more, we would be happy to discuss the options and best approach for your content 🙏.