How to Make a Digital Magazine Accessible

What to take away

Pick the target for each format

Choose the standard before the first page is built, and write it in the commissioning brief. Which formats you offer is a separate decision, covered in digital magazine formats compared.

An EPUB declares its claim in a dcterms:conformsTo property, with a value in the pattern "EPUB Accessibility 1.1 - WCAG 2.2 Level AA". Do not write that string unless the issue has been tested to that level.

Where the law applies

Rules differ by jurisdiction, and this is not legal advice.

Build the content map first

List every block of one article in reading order before anyone opens a layout tool. Editorial suggestion: use a table so a designer cannot misread it.

Then read the unstyled document from start to finish. The order should still make sense without columns, floating cards or drop caps. That test matches WCAG criterion 1.3.2, Meaningful Sequence (Level A), which requires a correct reading sequence that software can determine.

The criteria that bite hardest in magazines

These WCAG 2.2 success criteria produce most of the failures in magazine files. Levels are as published in the Recommendation.

Criteria 2.4.11 and 2.5.8 are new in WCAG 2.2. They matter for apps and issue readers more than for static pages.

Classify every image

W3C's images tutorial sorts images by what they do. Use its categories as the table your picture desk fills in, and use the W3C alt decision tree when a case is unclear.

Editorial suggestion: write the alternative in context. A portrait caption may already name the person and event, so the alternative can carry the visible detail that the caption leaves out. A credit identifies who made the picture and is not an alternative. The photo editing guide covers caption practice.

Tables, audio and video

Use tables only for data. Mark up the caption, the header cells and the cell associations, and simplify split or nested grids. For a chart, state the finding in the prose and give the values or a complete description.

W3C defines captions as a text version of speech and non-speech audio needed to understand the content, synchronised with the audio. It separates two transcript types. A basic transcript carries speech and necessary sounds. A descriptive transcript adds the visual information, and W3C says descriptive transcripts are needed to serve people who are both Deaf and blind. Editorial suggestion: commission the descriptive version at the shoot, when notes on visuals are still easy to take.

Make and check each format

Web edition. Run the Nu Html Checker, the markup validator hosted by W3C, for markup errors. Add a browser checker such as axe DevTools (made by Deque Systems, with a browser extension) or WAVE (WebAIM), then continue with the manual tests below. WAVE describes its aim as to "facilitate human evaluation" of web content.

EPUB. Run EPUBCheck, the conformance checker for EPUB files, then Ace by DAISY, the accessibility checker for EPUB. In the package metadata, include accessMode, accessibilityFeature and accessibilityHazard, and add accessibilitySummary and accessModeSufficient. If the EPUB is offered as the reflowable equivalent of a print issue, the specification says it should include page navigation, and any publication that does must include a page list.

Tagged PDF. PDF/UA-1 requires that all real content is tagged, artifacts are marked and left out of the tag tree, reading order is logical, real images get a Figure tag with alternative text, fonts are embedded and the language is declared. W3C publishes matching PDF techniques for WCAG: PDF1 (alt text), PDF6 (tables), PDF9 (headings), PDF16 (language), PDF11 (links) and PDF18 (title). Check the file with PAC, a free checker for PDF/UA and WCAG that includes a screen-reader preview, and then inspect the tag tree by hand. Editorial suggestion: treat the manual inspection as mandatory, because tags can be missing or wrong. Editorial suggestion: offer a reflowable format next to any fixed-layout replica.

Run the manual tests

Automated tools cover part of the criteria. Record each test with the tool, version, platform and build identifier so another editor can repeat it.

Log each finding, the fix and the retest. Common failure patterns are collected in digital magazine accessibility problems.

Publish what you tested

Say which formats exist, what each one supports, and which known gaps remain. Give a working route for reporting a barrier. UK public bodies must publish an accessibility statement, and it is good practice elsewhere. Tie the statement to the tested build, and update it when a correction ships.

Sources