The status of digital accessibility in France

Dominique BURGERUniversité Pierre et Marie Curie

Association BrailleNet

dominique.burger@upmc.fr

Funka Accessibility Days – Stockholm – 11 April 2013

Outlines

1. Web Accessibility • Regulations in France• AccessiWeb

2. eBook Accessibility • Copyright Exception in France• Biblothèque Numérique Francophone Accessible

France seen from the sky

Stockholm is here

France is there

France seen from MeAC (2011)Monitoring eAccessibility in Europe

CZ

DK

FR

DEGR

HUIE

IT

PT

ES

SE

NL

UK

AUCA NO

US

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

eAcc

essib

ility

stat

us

eAccessibility policy implementation level

Trendline (EU countries)

Internet accessibility versus Internet accessibility policy

A brief story of Web Accessibility in France

1999

2005

W3C/WAI releases WCAG 1.0 (May 99)

Circular of the Prime Minister (Oct. 99)

European recommendations : communications of the commission 2001, 2002; resolution of the Parliament 2002

AccessiWeb 1.0 by BrailleNet

Adoption of AccessiWeb by the French government

Law of 11 february 2005 – art 47

2003

2004

Law of 11 february 2005 – art 47• 11/02/05 - The Law for Equal Rights and Opportunities,

Participation and Citizenship of People with Disabilities

• Article 47, makes accessibility of all public digital communication services mandatory, i.e. public websites, but also phone and TV services , according to international standards.

• 10/09 - Decree • The decree refers to a technical reference document (RGAA) that specifies

requirements for public Web sites. This document is “based” on WCAG 2.0

• Employees of public services should be trained

• Conformity is Self Declarative

• No control authority No declarations

• No plan for large-scale training e-Accessibility skills insufficient

law

decree

and ?

AccessiWeb – a Non-for-profit Initiative

Demands BrailleNet’s Answers

Information, clarification, explanations, translations

Guidelines => AccessiWeb 1.0

Advises AccessiWeb Training

Conformity Assessment 3rd Party certification procedure(label AccessiWeb)

2003 : Launch of the GTA (AccessiWeb Working Group )

Without professional skills policies remain unfulfilled

Skills are supported by communities

AccessiWeb Working Group(GTA)

Technical Seminars 17 seminars since 2003, 850 participants

Translations WCAG 2.0 in French - 25 June 2009First W3C authorized translation

Comprendre les WCAG 2.0 - 6 July 2011

Technical Reference documents

AccessiWeb 5 versions de 1.0 à 2.2, AccessiWeb CMS 1.0

Methodological tools MIPAW (in progress)

Technical Discussions Over 5000 Technical messages exchanged since 2003

GTA• 470 professionals trained by BrailleNet • Public and private Sectors • Developers, project managers, Content providers, …

Evolution of the GTA : 2003 - 2013

Developing of a network of Web accessibility experts in France

Missions of the GTA

GTA, a professional community in the field of Web accessibilityTo share common concepts and the same understanding

of accessibility; to exchange good practicesA working method to make the expertise evolve

consensually A core of experts Expert Referees Open calls for Comments (GTA and beyond)

Applied with success to Translations Versioning reference documents: 5 versions of AccessiWeb 1.0 to

2.2 Elaborating a certification schema (in progress)

To help professionals developing and shape their expertise in Web accessibility

Liaison standardization bodies : W3C and DAISY Transparency Cooperation with industry Respond to demands from industry Independence - Vendor Neutrality Cooperative work Make consensus emerge International cooperation

Main leading Principles

Make collective expertise emerge from individual know-how

Non-for-profit association Public support Partnership with public institutions Support from companies Services : training, conformity audits Contribution from members

Business Model

• To adapt to market conditions• To control the costs• To Remain small

2013 Roadmap

Demand BrailleNet’s Answer

Evolution towards HTML5 WAI/ARIA, mobile technologies

Evolution of AccessiWeb reference documents

Need for qualified experts certification scheme extended : conformity + competence

From Certifying Conformity

Quality Control

BrailleNet

AccessiWebReference document

On Line Web Service

Galery of certified WebSites

ComplaintChanel

InspectionBodyInspection

Body

User

Liaisons

Contract

Standardisation Bodies

Agreement of Organizations

To Certifying Competence

Quality Control

BrailleNet

AccessiWebReference document

On Line Web Service

Galery of certified WebSites

ComplaintChanel

InspectionBodyInspection

Body

User

Liaisons

Contract

Standardisation Bodies

Certification of competences

ProfessionnalDirectory

Expert ICAExpert ICA

Expert ICA

Peer Examination

COST -Scientific and Technical Orientation Committee

Over 10 years, AccessiWeb Working Group contributed to :

effective dissemination of standards and best practices structuring of a professional sector set up a de facto authority (BrailleNet / AccessiWeb) provide an economical model the legitimity and credibility of e-accessibility

People and communities do matter !

Conclusions

eBook Accessibility

Papier

Read the same books not the same way

Helen Server One unique format addressing various cases

Audio Daisy PDF Braille

XML ePUB 3.0

Daisy Text

Copyright exception in France

2001

2008

European Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society

Law of 1 August 2006 – art 47 (DADVSI)

decree n° 2008-1391 of 19 December 2008 a)Publishers provide files used to produce booksb) A national commission agrees organizations producing adapted booksc) Those organizations may request files via a platform managed by the National Libary

2006

2010

Bibliothèque Nationale de France

National Accreditation Body

Authorized

organization

Authorized

organization

National Library

Implementing the French exception Law of 1 August 2006 + decree 2008

Authorized

organization

Since July 2010

Eligible Users

OCRisation

CORRECTIONS

STRUCTURATION

ADAPTATION

90 to 98 % of costs

2 to 10 % of costs

Process & Costs

Average Cost

0

20

40

60

80

100

Papier PDF Word XML

Average cost of a book adaptation in €(medium complexity)

Coût moyen (€)

XML

1h50/book (calculated on 1100 titles of low or medium complexity

Bad vs Best

La santé de Louis XIV, Publisher Tempus 699 pages, 156 pages of notes

Notice creation

OCR

Structuration and correction

And – the worse – processing footnotes

25 hours

PDF

Œuvres Complètes de Platon, Publisher Flammarion, 2204 pages, 923 footnotes

Notice creation

Quick Check

Automated Conversion XML to Daisy

10 minutes

XML

Bibliothèque Numérique Francophone Accessible

Objectives1. Better service to print disabled readers (unified procedures, larger catalogue, better quality)

2. Efficiency of production (sharing tools, methods and resources)

3. Transparency to right holders

4. Dialogue with publishers

= + +

Catalogue

Helen Library

BNFA

Accessible Publishing Facilitated

2012 ePUB 3.0 contains all accessibility features required by the Daisy ConsortiumIn 2011 IDPF appointed the Daisy CTO as their Chief Technical Officer

Technologies and standards have completely changed the production process of books that are accessible to the print disabled The production of accessible books and mainstream commercial books are fundamentally similar Organization producing accessible books and publishers should cooperate Copyright Exceptions exist in many countries However, the cross border exchange of adapted books is not solved (TIGAR exploratory project run by WIPO)

Conclusions

Thank You !

Questions ?