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PDFs and Accessibility

Thursday, 10 September 2009

Mark, Barry and all, my tuppence worth. Barry wrote: > > > > So what to advise the client? That this is key strategic issue > > for their business; and that accessibility is only the tip of > > this iceberg. They need to take a strategic, long term, look at > > their publications processes, one that is not focussed on a > > particular output format, and especially not a single, > > fundamentally visually oriented format (as PDF still is). If > > they can think about re-engineering that process into one that > > can produce a living repository of structured, re-purposable, > > information, which will benefit the organisation and its users > > long beyond any single, transient technology-de-jour - rather > > than one whose business has changed merely from putting dots of > > ink on paper to one of projecting pictures of dots of ink on > > paper onto a computer screen - then, which is more, "you will be a > > man, my son..." A little worms-eye view of this issue if I may... While this is precisely the long-term approach to be taken, I think most public sector organisations are still quite a way off from this. All website managers are up against it when dealing with the typical publication process. This very often involves draft content in a Word document authored by multiple people being sent to a desk-top publishing company and, many iterations of edits later, a print-ready PDF is created which the web manager is then expected to make an accessible something out of. One of the progressive managers I know recently told me they then pay the desk-top publishing house to 'tag-up' this PDF in order for it to be accessible. This I believe is probably being done because it is preferable to tackling to process in which the content is authored, proofed and edited which does not lend itself to the creation of a single mater document from which multiple formats can be created. However in most cases there is not the money/support for the web manager to do this or to the convert this content themselves. My suggestions to web managers looking to tackle this is to take a staged approach along the following lines:

• Short-term goal: Identify the most popular documents on your website that are used or likely to be used by the widest range of people (such as fact-sheets).
• Start with publishing these in an accessible, structured format. This will help identify the technical (such as authoring tools) and organisational issues that need to be overcome and dealt with regards to the publication process itself.
• Clearly state on the website that any older inaccessible documents will be converted to an accessible version on request (according to obligations under the Disability Act and the Code of Practice) Long-term goal: Identify a point in time from which all content will be published in an accessible format and work on the content production and publishing process with this in mind.
There is a lot of complexity involved in realising some of these stages but I do believe this is a reasonable and structured approach to take. Interested in any comments people may have on this... Regards, Dónal.
This is a comment on "Are PDFs More Important Than Web Accessibility?"