Great discussion (which I read a transcript of) about #a11y in romance. I used to work on publishing accessibility as part of my day job so I have thoughts! https://twitter.com/rombkpod/status/1301150642593955840

First of all: 1/5 people have one or more disability. Also, sometimes accessibility is important situationally - think about how you can't hear the sound of a video on your phone if you're in a quiet library or can't read text while you're driving. https://twitter.com/AndrejaJean/status/1108079729343692802?s=20

The reason more publishers don't create fully accessible content (that can easily be read by screen readers) is because they use outdated production methods. This is less of an issue for fiction where content is text heavy... https://twitter.com/AndrejaJean/status/1108023753525604352?s=20

...but think about cookbooks or math textbooks: layout is incredibly important. Most publishers don't start with mark-up language that can then be transformed into both a print file and a digital file that can be parsed by a screen reader or other accessibility aids.

In my experience working with hundreds of major book publishers, most do not know the first thing about how to even create basic accessible content. They are unwilling to invest in the infrastructure and process change necessary to overhaul their dated methods.

The primary format publishers should invest in is EPUB3. When you read on Kindle, you're actually reading a MOBI file, which is Amazon's proprietary format. This brings me to a very important point about platform: The most accessible future is platform agnostic...

...and all of the reading platforms and devices then need to support that format. Because guess what - even if you create an accessible format, you may not realize your device or reading platform are stripping out #a11y features. Many platforms also strip #a11y metadata.

A point Melinda and Meka bring up in the episode is about creating alt text for Twitter images - but developers had to build functionality into Twitter to enable this more intuitively.

A more accessible future is created through partnership between
1. creators & publishers
2. distributors/platforms/retailers/devices
3. consumers

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Go read/listen to the latest @rombkpod.