Good e-Reader - Friday, September 19, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Amazon is focusing on accessibility for Kindle books <https://media.goodereader.com/blog/uploads/images/2025/09/19014955/Screenshot-2025-09-18-at-22-49-38-Amazoncom-We-Love-You-Bunny-A-Novel-eBook-Awad-Mona-Kindle-Store.png> Amazon has been pushing accessibility hard lately, making Kindle books and Kindle e-readers better suited for people with visual disabilities. They have added a new tab to book description pages, called Accessibility. It has new Accessibility metadata <https://benetech.org/education-access-and-compliance/global-certified-accessible/> , including Visual Adjustments, Non-Visual Reading, Conformance, and Navigation. Publishers have been prioritizing the submission of e-books to Amazon that include accessibility features. According to Publishers Weekly <https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/98618-amazon-adds-benetech-accessible-metadata-to-ebooks-highlighting-simon-schuster-s-leadership.html> , “The move comes as publishers face increasing legal pressure to make digital content accessible, positioning accessible publishing as both a competitive advantage and a necessity as new laws such as the European Accessibility Act and expanded digital accessibility requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act drive industry momentum toward universal accessibility.” The e-books that publishers submit have to be compliant with Benetech’s Global Certified Accessible (GCA) standards <https://benetech.org/education-access-and-compliance/global-certified-accessible/> . This is a 3rd non-profit that works with publishers worldwide to integrate accessibility specifications into production workflows and certifies ongoing compliance. Amazon’s decision to display this metadata ensures that readers with vision impairments or dyslexia can easily find titles that meet their needs. Some major publishers submit books that are fully accessible, but this does not necessarily mean they are in an accessible format. The only publisher that is putting a priority on it is Simon & Schuster. “The publisher, which releases some 800 titles per year, is moving from certifying about 60% of its catalogue annually in 2022-2024 to 100% in 2025.” There have been various Kindle software enhancements that will appeal to readers with disabilities. Kindle Assistive Reader is one of them and is fully available in the update that was released a couple of days ago. It will essentially convert any Kindle book into an audiobook, utilizing an advanced text-to-speech system that sounds natural. However, you do need Bluetooth headphones, earbuds, or an external speaker. There is a new system-wide text enlarger that will make all menus and UI elements larger, giving users more control over the text size they want on the entire Kindle. <https://media.goodereader.com/blog/uploads/images/2025/09/19015643/Screenshot-2025-09-18-at-22-52-34-We-Love-You-Bunny-eBook-by-Mona-Awad-EPUB-Rakuten-Kobo-Canada.png> Amazon might be the only company to take accessibility this seriously, but Kobo does too. They also have smaller metadata information that has been available for some time, such as a table of contents and alt text for images. However, most of the features have been there for over s dozen years. There have been no software updates to add more features. Michael Kozlowski has written about audiobooks, e-books and e-readers for the past eighteen years. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/amazon-is-focusing-on-accessibility-for-kindle-books David Goldfield, Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist If you need help using your assistive technology learn about my training services by visiting WWW.ScreenReaderTraining.com <http://www.screenreadertraining.com/> Am Yisrael Chai The Nation of Israel Lives! JAWS Certified, 2022 <https://www.freedomscientific.com/Training/Certification/> NVDA Certified Expert <https://certification.nvaccess.org/> Subscribe to the Tech-VI announcement list to receive news, events and information regarding the blindness assistive technology field. Email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> www.DavidGoldfield.com <http://www.davidgoldfield.com/> Richard, USA “Reality is the leading cause of stress for those who are in touch with it.” – Jane Wagner, from The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. My web site: <https://www.turner42.com/> https://www.turner42.com -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: [email protected]. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/viphone/026001dc2b09%24a33c72a0%24e9b557e0%24%40comcast.net.
