EPUB 3 Working Group FXL A11y Task Force Telco — Minutes

Date: 2021-09-14

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Ken Jones, Charles LaPierre, Gregorio Pellegrino, Nazeli Kyuregyan-Baron, Hadrien Gardeur, Brady Duga

Regrets:

Guests:

Chair: Wendy Reid

Scribe(s): Nazeli Kyuregyan-Baron

Content:

Wendy Reid: We’ve started talking about the TPAC meeting, last two were virtual, we were discussing agenda, CR docs etc. It’s good to do a session with our task force presenting our work. Currently we have Ken’s doc and Hadrien’s alternate proposal. We can present both. Let’s talk today of how to prepare our proposal.
… TPAC happening last two weeks of October. Working group is meeting 28-29 Oct.

Hadrien Gardeur: Will check my schedule.

Ken Jones: I might be away, I’ll try to connect just the same.

Hadrien Gardeur: My document is a gist, haven’t written it more extensively. Should I?

Wendy Reid: Yes

Nazeli Kyuregyan-Baron: Hadrien. The idea of the proposal is that there is nothing new.

Hadrien Gardeur: See My proposal

Hadrien Gardeur: It’s a basic example of a single item in the spine. In the manifest there are two items. It’s using the ability to provide a fallback to indicate a reflowable version of a document. Imagine you have a comic book, a lot going on, text as bitmap. As a user you could provide the ability to switch one or the other, or side by side. The system can show you the full page and use TTS for the reflowable part

Hardien: it’s having multiple versions of a publication in the same package. The idea here is not to need multiple OPFs, just one.

Hadrien Gardeur: I see it as a complimentary rather than ultimate proposal. For some publications, having a reflowable way would be a solution. This is not adding anything new in the EPUB. It’s twisting the way flowback is designed.
… One thing missing in the OPF is this information indicating there is a reflowable version in it.

Ken Jones: does the reading system need to be aware that this is done? Or would it be automatic?

Hadrien Gardeur: A reading system will have to activate the toggle switch, various affordances. This can be useful for smaller devices too. Or you can use the reflow only for screen reader. These are the two affordances that a reading system needs to implement.
… Every reading system should at least be able to parse the whole file without changing anything?

Gregorio Pellegrino: Would a simple demo/mock up showing the rendering be an option?
… maybe we can set it up easily. I can help. This way we show the code of the manifest and what it looks like.

Hadrien Gardeur: Is this planned for other examples or is it only relevant here?

Wendy Reid: with the two versions we have, Ken’s and yours, where the only difference is the ‘how’ (one file with alternate CSSs and yours which is using the fallback mechanism with multiple HTML files). To the user the result would be the same.

Ken Jones: One has a single content presented in two ways, the other has two contents presented in the same way. Maybe we can mix them up.

Gregorio Pellegrino: I would like to try to put Hadrien’s manifest and run it through EPUB Checker, just to be sure.

Ken Jones: I think it will pass as it is. I had an example that worked on media queries. But would the reading system actually. You would mock up what a reading system would do. We can use my demonstration as a visual demo

Charles LaPierre: Would the reading system have to do something to switch between views?

Hadrien Gardeur: In all cases the reading system have to do something. In my example the RS would have to display the reflowable view instead of the FXL.

Wendy Reid: We can’t avoid how RS render content, adding new affordance to EPUB. We’ll be the most successful if we don’t have to add anything to EPUB, or VERY little. Keep these ideas in mind since in October we’ll discuss what the future of EPUB is, so bear those in mind.

Ken Jones: See My explainer

Wendy Reid: Should we present both options? In preparation for TPAC it’s worth reviewing Ken’s work and add an explainer to Hadrien’s proposal. We can thus present both at TPAC.

Ken Jones: I did a video to explain what this task force is achieving and will do next, including a demo of my work. Youc an reuse that if I’m not present at the meeting.

Wendy Reid: We can definitely use those.

Gregorio Pellegrino: Wendy, Hadrien and Brady, it’s for you to decide.

Wendy Reid: The reading system reading side is important, but it’s important to get the feedback of content creators and publishers who will say which way involves less work for them. I say we propose both.

Ken Jones: I think we should present it as one idea involving two methods and see their reaction.

Hadrien Gardeur: I agree it’s fundamentally the same principle.? The difference is when you can apply one or the other.
… There’s also the question of which method works with which type of content.
… An organisation can enhance a comic book to add the reflowable element missing there, as in the ASS you need to design in.

Wendy Reid: We can re-discuss all of this. Everyone read Ken’s document.

Charles LaPierre: We want the publishers to do it right from the first time so as not to risk them not getting it done immediately. So I’m thinking about content that’s already being created.

Wendy Reid: we have TTS section, navigation section and metadata section worked by Rachel.

Wendy Reid: See FXL A11y draft

wnedyreid: I’ll update the doc.

Gregorio Pellegrino: I finished the extraction of the Mondadori files, I’ve send them for approval. I’m concerned how to make the files accessible, fixing them from epub is very difficult but we’ll try.

Ken Jones: Nazeli screenshot https://www.dropbox.com/s/yel9i7upigtl58e/Capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%202021-09-14%20%C3%A0%2015.39.48.png?dl=0

Nazeli Kyuregyan-Baron: https://stratus.media-participations.be/index.php/s/YybpKRAQWscGsHz

Nazeli Kyuregyan-Baron: here are some comics epubs of various types

Wendy Reid: https://www.w3.org/2021/09/publishing-seminar/