Born Accessible

01The Upstream Argument

Every accessible format described in this guide begins as a retrofit. A print book is published; sometime later — often much later, sometimes never — a braille transcription is commissioned, an audio recording made, a large-print edition typeset. Each conversion costs money and time and introduces new opportunities for error. The upstream argument says this is backwards: build the accessible version into the original production workflow and you spend less, finish sooner, and reach readers who otherwise wait years or go without.

The logic is sound. A publisher working in a properly structured workflow — one where headings are tagged as headings, images carry alt text, reading order is defined before any file leaves the building — produces an EPUB that already meets accessibility criteria at no meaningful extra cost. The same semantic structure that serves a screen reader on publication day is the structure a DAISY converter or large-print compositor can work from directly. Nothing needs to be reconstructed after the fact.

What this requires in practice is more demanding than it sounds. It means every editorial and design decision is made with structure in mind: styles applied consistently, tables built as real tables rather than spaced text, images described at the point of creation rather than years later when the editorial team has changed and nobody remembers what the photograph was meant to show. It means vendors and typesetters are briefed to deliver files that meet a standard, and that someone checks whether they have.

The standard most often cited is EPUB Accessibility 1.1, itself aligned with WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Publishers who meet it can assert conformance in metadata — a claim that downstream producers, library systems and readers can actually verify.

Why is it still uncommon? Partly inertia, partly the absence of a market signal strong enough to change workflows that already work for the majority of buyers. Accessibility requirements in public procurement are beginning to apply that pressure, slowly.