Mainstream Access to E-Books--What Works, What Doesn’t, and What Is Still Unclear

Mainstream Access to E-Books--What Works, What Doesn’t, and What Is Still Unclear

Braille Monitor
January 2012

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Mainstream Access to E-Books--What Works, What Doesn’t, and What Is Still Unclear
by Amy Mason
From the Editor: The following article was researched and written by Amy Mason, a relatively new member of the Access Technology Team that among other responsibilities staffs the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind. Amy was a longtime member of the National Federation of the Blind of Nebraska. She has held several elected positions in the affiliate and now contributes her many talents to advance technology for the blind. The topic of accessible e-books is of interest to all who love to read—the ability to get at books without the need for a third party to intervene in order to make them accessible. To get the same books at the same time at the same price is our goal, but this list is incomplete if we don’t add to it the demand that we receive the same quality in presentation that our sighted friends and neighbors enjoy. Amy treats us to a first-class, hard-hitting evaluation of e-book readers. Here is what she says:
E-books are an extremely popular topic these days. Ever since Amazon introduced the Kindle and built the first really successful mainstream e-book reader, more and more people are talking about, buying, and using e-books in several formats on a number of competing platforms at varying prices for many reasons: leisure, education, reference, and work. E-books are an especially exciting development for print-disabled and blind readers because their properties make them ideal for finding alternative forms of access. When an e-book is presented in an accessible format on an accessible e-book reader, the user can choose to read the book using text-to-speech, Braille, or magnification. Furthermore, accessible e-books in an open market benefit everyone. Publishers gain access to an otherwise untapped revenue stream, those who cannot access traditional print materials. The general public gains access to books that are even more flexible and feature-rich than they are now, while blind and other print-disabled users, for the first time in history, gain access to the same books and publications at the same price and at the same time as the rest of society.
Unfortunately, the landscape of e-book reading technology is littered with hundreds of combinations of file formats, devices, and platforms. These competing platforms and devices include varying levels of accessibility and different methods of access. To add to the confusion, some sites for purchasing e-books are less than forthcoming in mentioning features that might affect a book’s accessibility, so it is difficult to find the best solution.
In this article we will look at several of the major e-book-reading platforms, their accessibility features, major drawbacks, and other pertinent information, so that users can make informed choices about what platforms and file types are likely to be of most use to them.
Because of the complexity of the current e-book-reading landscape, this article will focus on dedicated hardware devices: Apple iOS software, Mac, and Windows PC support. None of the tested e-book readers on the Android platform at the time of testing were accessible, Windows Phone 7 doesn’t contain support for access technology at this time, and Symbian phones are becoming difficult to purchase since they are no longer being manufactured; so these platforms are ill suited to comparison in this article.
Blio
Blio is a fairly new e-book technology. It was created by KNFB Reading Technologies to provide e-books that are visually appealing; laid out like their print counterparts; and, most excitingly, accessible to screen-access technology. The Blio platform has the backing of Baker and Taylor, one of the largest e-book publishers in the market, and it already has a large collection of materials in many areas of interest. Furthermore, on small-screen iOS devices the VoiceOver experience is fairly pleasant. It is possible to read by line, by word, or by character; to jump to different chapters and pages; and to read both continuously and page by page. Finally, the Blio iOS e-book reader allows reading with a Bluetooth Braille display.
Unfortunately, this is where the joys of using Blio end. While well intentioned and technologically impressive, Blio seems to have gotten so wrapped up in the final product and its visual presentation that many accessibility details have been overlooked or poorly implemented. For instance, for the PC, Blio’s website mentions the system requirements for running the program (Windows XP SP3 or newer and JAWS versions 11 or newer). They do not mention that running Blio with JAWS requires Windows 7. Next, once it is up and running on Windows, it works well until the user has a reason to tab away from its window, the computer goes to standby, or the program loses focus for any reason. After any of these common events, it is no longer possible to read the text by any element larger than word by word, because, if the user attempts to, the program skips about half of the words on the page. The only fix we found in testing the program was to reset the computer, since restarting JAWS and Blio is not enough to cause the program to act correctly. Furthermore, changing the book view has been known to cause the program to crash. Last of all, there appears to be a bug in the iPad version of the software which causes it to try to read an entire page of text when the user attempts to read by line. Thus, although Blio has a good start, its producer still has a fair distance to go before the product is a truly trustworthy solution.

CourseSmart
The CourseSmart e-book provider allows users to access textbooks through an online web portal that can be successfully navigated by either the Mac or the PC. It is built on a rental model, which means that the books available from the system are available to students for either 180 or 360 days continuously and cost about 50 percent of the price of their print versions. A blind software user has to contact the CourseSmart organization’s support team to ask that they enable the accessible reader, but once this task is completed, it is possible to move through the text using standard navigational commands supplied by the screen reader. The text is presented in a page-by-page layout, meaning that the user sits at the computer and flips pages; the navigation is fairly well laid out, and, since the CourseSmart reader exposes the text to the screen-access software being used, it is possible to navigate character by character, word by word, line by line, and so forth. Furthermore, the layout of the system allows for movement by chapter or jumping to specific pages in the text. Since it is exposing text to the screen reader directly, CourseSmart also allows use of a refreshable Braille display.
To be fully accessible, the CourseSmart developers can still make improvements in two areas. First, not all of CourseSmart’s selections are marked up for navigation. We did not test CourseSmart’s ability to move through a marked-up text because the textbooks we acquired for this project did not contain the markup. It is possible to request that a title be marked appropriately and have it available within as little as two weeks. Unfortunately, a two-week delay could put students at a severe disadvantage. Second, the CourseSmart app for iOS is not accessible, though a student can get around this by using the website with the Safari browser on iOS devices. So all in all it is a fairly usable system that could be improved to be something spectacular if these problems are rectified.
EPUB
EPUB is one of the most widely known and used formats for providing e-books. It was developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum to provide a reflowable, platform-independent electronic book. It can come in several different variants that provide various levels of accessibility from completely accessible without restriction to completely inaccessible. The EPUB format is based on several web formats that are accessible in large part. The two major problems that arise with the format are the current lack of support of mathematical formulas in an accessible format, which often allows publishers to print math in the form of graphics on the page instead of readable and searchable text, and the more far-reaching problem of digital rights management (DRM) schemes that force books to be read on inaccessible platforms or that keep the books’ texts from being searched or read aloud.
Unprotected EPUB files are accessible primarily because they are built to be navigated very much like HTML documents. They contain similar structural elements, and, if the reader being used is accessible, the book is likely to be accessible as well unless it contains inaccessible charts, mathematical formulas, or illustrations.
EPUB’s popularity is likely to continue to grow even further with the forthcoming EPUB version 3, which will include a number of enhancements such as the ability to embed video and audio directly in the publication, sync audio to on-screen text, support advanced document layouts, and enhance accessibility of EPUB documents. This is very good news for blind e-book readers. Some of the most interesting changes that affect accessibility for blind users include formal support for MathML (a markup language that makes it possible to represent complex mathematical formulas onscreen and with screen-access software), support for pronunciation lists within EPUB to assist with using the file with text-to-speech, integration of key DAISY components, and support for multiple style sheets to improve the reading experience, no matter what device is being used. Several mainstream and blindness-specific book-reading platforms will read unprotected EPUB files. Some of the more accessible mainstream options include Google Books (on the desktop with Firefox and JAWS for Windows, VoiceOver and Safari on the Mac, and the app for iOS), the Ibis reader for desktop and mobile devices capable of rendering HTML5 Web pages, and iBooks on iOS devices.
Adobe Digital Editions and OverDrive
Several forms of protected EPUB are on the market from myriad sellers, but some of the most widely circulated are encoded with a protection scheme from Adobe Systems. Thus e-books.com, Google Books, Kobo, and OverDrive sell or lend EPUB files that have been protected by this scheme and are tied to specific reading platforms, many of which are completely inaccessible, like the hardware-based Sony Reader. On the PC or Mac, users can gain limited access to these books with the Adobe Digital Editions platform, but they have to download the version 1.8 preview from Adobe Labs instead of the mainstream version (1.7.1).
This is not the only platform limitation, however. The biggest problems revealed in our most recent tests were a lack of granular navigation and the general lack of robustness of the software on both the PC and the Mac. A user is limited to navigating page by page on the Mac, and on the PC it’s difficult to tell whether the navigation by character, word, and line was intentional or caused by instabilities in the software, because the navigation worked when a document was opened once but not the next time. It was possible to read these books with Braille display support, but the text would often appear to a Braille reader to be highlighted, whether or not it actually appeared that way on screen. The software was generally buggy, crashing several times while being tested. Perhaps most frustrating for PC users, the program works only with version 12 of JAWS. Older versions of JAWS as well as other screen readers for Windows cannot access the text on screen, so a number of users are left without even the rudimentary accessibility that Adobe Digital Editions provides.
While we are discussing the Adobe platform, it is important to look at the OverDrive Media Console. OverDrive is a platform used by a large number of libraries around the country to check out digital books to patrons, and the OverDrive Media Console is the primary medium for accessing these files on mobile devices such as the iDevices. The news about this platform is mixed. It is important to note that OverDrive’s program is not fully accessible but can generally be worked around if a user is patient and not too picky about the level of control. For instance, there is a problem with the pop-up dialogs. The program will allow a user to use VoiceOver to read the answers of the dialog but not the question being asked. For instance, in a dialog that reads, “This program is not linked to an Adobe account,” with buttons for signing in and creating a new account, the only information passed to VoiceOver is that on the buttons, so the dialog reads, “Sign up” and “Sign in with Adobe ID.” The information for accessing download information is also not all passed to VoiceOver, so it is difficult to get accurate information about the state of the files being downloaded.
After the user has downloaded a book and has been signed in to Adobe, it is possible to open the book, which offers a screenful of text between a list of settings on top and a page-turning tool and status messages on the bottom. When tested, it is possible to touch a section of text on the screen and start reading from that point on the iPad and iPod Touch. However, the screen does not update as VoiceOver reads past what is available visibly onscreen, which means that, although users can start reading and even read line by line and character by character, if they simply explore, they will land back on the visually displayed text, even if that is several pages behind where they are in the book.
It is also very difficult to get the OverDrive reader to respond to attempts to change the page, so moving by page to get back to where the user was is not a simple process, and seemed to occur more by accident than by design. Also, although this platform has not been tested with the iPhone 4S, each iPhone 4 that was tested crashed when attempts were made to use VoiceOver to try to read an EPUB book in the OverDrive Console.
Finally, it should be noted that OverDrive also provides functionality for receiving and reading audio books through the library lending system. These are Windows Media Player files with embedded DRM, which ties them to the player or to Windows Media on the PC, and, although the same problems with the program’s main interface still exist, it is possible to use and enjoy these audio books once one is past the unlabeled dialog boxes.
Google Books
Google Books is one of the most interesting options on this list. With over three million books in the public domain and for purchase, Google has one of the largest collections of books available. This number is impressive, but it comes with some limitations of which the user should be aware. Many Google Books offerings are scanned images of the text only, so these titles will not be accessible to any screen reader. If they are downloaded, they come in the form of inaccessible PDFs. Other books, however, are available from Google labeled as “reflowable text.” Once again these are EPUB files. Some are in the public domain and contain no digital rights management, but those that are not are protected with the Adobe Digital Editions DRM. This is not a barrier to reading the books from Google Books, on the Google Books app or in a browser, but, if users wish to download the materials, they are tied to using Adobe Digital Editions to access this type of file.
The Google Books reading experience is certainly better than a number of other options on this list, but a user has to play by Google’s rules to get the system to work, and some accessibility barriers to purchasing books from the website still exist. Users can browse and purchase books with screen-access software, but at the time of this writing they will find one major barrier to independent book purchase. Google has a list of environments the book is suited to and a second list that contains information on whether the book is reflowable text or scanned images, and all book titles list this information. Next to these items on the screen is either a green checkmark or a red X. These very important graphics absolutely cannot be detected or read by screen-access software, which makes it impossible to determine whether a book is an accessible file or not without sighted assistance.
If users surmount this hurdle, they will find that they can read their purchases or download them in the e-book reader that Google provides on its website, if they are using Firefox and JAWS on a PC, Safari and VoiceOver on a Mac, or an iOS device and the Google Books app with VoiceOver. If these conditions are met, it is possible to use the navigation in a book to move by chapters or sections and read by page, line, word, character, or any other increment supported by the screen-access software. It is possible to use a supported Braille display in all of these environments as well. The system does require a fair amount of interaction from the user since the pages of text seem to be rather small, meaning that the user is fairly regularly turning pages to continue reading, though this is more of an inconvenience than a deal-breaker, and it seems to be in the nature of most commercial e-book-reading systems.
iBooks
Apple’s iBooks is a platform for reading EPUB files on the iOS family of devices: iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It has a smaller library than those of some of the other reading devices mentioned in this article, and it uses its own proprietary DRM scheme, which means that you have to read iBooks with the iBooks reader. Since this has not been made available to desktop users on either Windows or the Mac, users must own an iOS device to get anything out of the service. This said, iBooks is one of the most accessible options available for reading commercial e-books today. It is possible to move by character, word, line, paragraph, or page by using Apple’s VoiceOver package. Furthermore, though its presentation is a little awkward, it is possible to read iBooks with a refreshable Bluetooth Braille display. It is also possible to search text and navigate by elements like headings and links when they appear in the text. Finally, full navigation of the text is possible in all of the iBooks, which can be purchased from the iTunes store.
Nook
The Barnes and Noble Nook is built primarily on EPUB technology but uses another unique DRM scheme. At this time very little can be said about the Nook because its bookstore, desktop software, mobile software, and dedicated hardware reading devices are all inaccessible to blind users.
Kindle
The Amazon Kindle has a large library of materials, a well-designed hardware reader, wide hardware availability, and a terrible record on accessibility. Of the large number of Kindle platforms and dedicated devices, only a small fraction have any accessibility features that make them even remotely usable by blind readers. The Kindle 3 hardware reader and Kindle for PC with accessibility plugin (another specialized download) are the only confirmed options for reading Kindle materials with text-to-speech. Kindle on iOS and Mac are inaccessible to VoiceOver. Older Kindle hardware readers do not allow for text-to-speech control of the menus, and in the case of the least expensive Kindle ($79) or the recently released Kindle Fire, there are no accessibility features whatsoever. Text-to-speech can be turned off by the publisher on the Kindle 3, so not even all content can be accessed. The web browser and purchase functions are also not accessible on this device. Reading is limited to start/stop, the ability of the device to remember where you stopped, and basic speed controls. It is not possible to go back in the text, spell words, read by sentence, search, or otherwise control the voice being used. Finally, because text-to-speech is considered an experimental feature, it may be discontinued later by Amazon.
The Amazon Kindle for PC provides a slightly better experience in so far as it is possible to go forward and backward in a book, read continuously or by page, and read sentences. Amazon has chosen to allow JAWS and NVDA users to navigate menus with the screen reader, but it has implemented its own commands and voice to read the actual text on the screen, meaning that there is no Braille support for the experience, and users are unable to read in smaller increments than by sentence. Thus, although some rudimentary access to Kindle books is available, it is not nearly enough to use the books for anything but the most casual reading.
PDF
Adobe’s PDF is a fairly common format for technical materials like manuals and heavily formatted materials like textbooks. It is used more for other types of portable documents than for books, but it certainly has a presence on the e-book scene. Once again, these files can be anything from perfectly accessible to completely inaccessible. In the case of PDF, however, the reasons are different. Although DRM’ed PDFs exist, they are not prevalent and thus are not a barrier to access in most situations. Inaccessible PDFs often result from scanning the text of a book without performing optical character recognition on the scanned images or by failing to consider the way that a book will flow when presented by a screen reader. Unfortunately it is difficult to determine how a given PDF will function until you actually try to use it.
Several platforms are available for accessing PDF with differing levels of accessibility and user-friendliness. On the PC, PDFs can be accessed by using Adobe’s Acrobat Reader, and, if the book is well marked-up and is not simply images of the text, the navigational experience can be as pleasant as reading a well-made HTML web page or Word document. On the Mac, Apple’s PDF viewer will expose the text for navigation and search, but it does not recognize navigational elements like headings that are recognized on the PC. On iOS devices PDFs can be accessed using iBooks, but only to a limited extent. The PDF document allows for only page-by-page navigation, which is bearable for some tasks but can be a deal-breaker if users are working with texts that require careful scrutiny or if they need to read specific passages in greater detail or need spelling information.
Conclusion
In an ideal world all the major e-book technologies would be accessible to print-disabled and blind users. These book platforms would allow users to browse, purchase, and consume content in the most comfortable and appropriate manner for the user’s needs and the type of content consumed. All e-book platforms are falling short of this laudable goal. Some options work fairly well and allow reasonable access to text, but all of the platforms discussed in this article need improvement.
This list is not exhaustive, but e-book platform publishers can do several things to improve the experience for print-disabled readers, several of which would not be difficult to implement. First, although it is understandable that books that were created inaccessible cannot be transformed overnight, it should be a long-term goal to migrate to accessible technologies and in the short term to ensure that books are clearly marked if they are image only or otherwise inaccessible in their present condition. Second, it is imperative that the book-purchase model allow users to buy books independently from whatever portal the platform uses.
Third, once the user has a book, the e-book reader being used should be built to comply with the standards of the operating system it sits within to allow screen access and magnification software to access the book player’s controls and the text inside the books. If this occurs, the user will be able to read with the text in the most comfortable and robust way for the text at hand, whether magnifying a chart, reading computer commands in Braille, or checking the spelling of an author’s name so that the user can purchase the next book in the series.
When dedicated devices are created, the creator should ensure that users have a method for turning on any accessibility feature independently. Furthermore, the device’s access software should be robust enough to work reliably and allow meaningful interaction with the text at the character, word, line, paragraph, section, page, and chapter levels, as well as providing access to any other features of the device available to print users. It would be best if book-reading platforms would allow for continuous as well as paginated reading because they both have advantages for different reading styles and materials. Allowing for highlighting of words as they are read aloud could also help people learning to read in print for the first time or for those attempting to learn other languages or for those with some learning disabilities.
Users of e-readers must have access to the tools and features that make e-readers useful to print readers. For instance, search, highlight, annotate, and bookmark text are generally standard features of e-reading platforms, and they need to be available to blind users as well. Finally, if at all possible, e-book creators need to do away with special accessible versions of their software, instead rolling accessibility changes into the main program. If for some reason the program needs to be specially configured, installed differently, or used differently, the necessary commands to get the program running successfully should be available from the page where the e-book reader is acquired by users who are not print-disabled.
E-books on the open market are a fascinating and exciting development when they are implemented accessibly. They allow blind and print-disabled users to read unheard of amounts of content at the same time, price, and convenience as their print-reading peers, if the books and reading platforms are created to be accessible. These books make it possible for print-disabled readers to enjoy a novel, get an education, advance in their careers, learn new skills, and join in all of the other activities enjoyed by the book-reading public.

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