EPUB testing criteria

EPUB testing discussion for the SDPP-D Grant projects

EPUB testing criteria

Post by
Daniella.LP
»
Thu Oct 04, 2018 1:55 pm
Hi,

Now that everyone has had access to a reports from the previous audits and to one of the books covered in that report, we can turn our attention to the criteria for assessing EPUB files more systematically.

I put two files in Dropbox, in the "EPUB Testing" folder.

1. A Word document listing the testing criteria ("EPUB testing criteria (Oct 4).docx")
2. An Excel file for recording answers to the questions for the assessment ("EPUB testing questions (Oct 4).xlsx")

The list of criteria is not definitive, any comments or suggestions you may have are welcome. Please post them here so that everyone can read and be part of the conversation.

Thanks and regards,

Daniella
Daniella.LP
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Re: EPUB testing criteria

Post by
Heidi
»
Fri Oct 05, 2018 12:13 pm
I would just like to add a few suggestions:
Some EPUB books provide audio narration synchronized with the text using media overlays. If you have received such books from publisher's in the past, it may be helpful to create testing chriteria for this situation. The W3C's Epub Accessibility 1.0, standard 4.4.2 defines accessible media overlay requirements.
If audio or video content is included in the book and the multimedia contains information not available within the text, WCAG guideline 1.2.1 recommends that an accessible alternative is provided.
If color or other visual styling is used to convey meaningful information within the text, are nonvisual cues available? For more information, please see WCAG guidelines 1.3.3 and 1.4.1
Each HTML document within an EPUB book, such as a chapter file, should contain a meaningful <title> element. I've just read an EPUB book that contained no titles within it's individual HTML files. When this occurs, my EPUB reader placed the word "unknown" at the top of the document text. Please see WCAG guideline 2.4.2 for more information
Is a link's purpose clear from it's context? Does a link's text adequately describe what it does? An epub file I just tested contained no link text within a few of it's anchor tags. Please see Guideline 2.4.9

I hope you will find some of these suggestions to be of help. I wish all of you a great day!
Heidi
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Re: EPUB testing criteria

Post by
Danny
»
Tue Oct 09, 2018 10:34 am
Thanks so much for these fantastic suggestions, Heidi!

I have a quick question for you, if I may. How are you checking the HTML coding within an ePub? I usually unpack an ePub 3 title and bore into the directory hierarchy, but I don't think that would work with ePub 2. Thanks!
Danny
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Finding Elements

Post by
Danny
»
Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:35 am
Hi team,

In order to look for tables, images and lists, I extracted the XHTML files from the ePub archive and searched for each element in the marked-up text. I would be curious to know how other testers are locating these tags in their files. It seems effective, but clunky, and may not work for files in different formats. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I spent an hour reviewing my title, "Something for Everyone." I would appreciate feedback on this before submitting my report, as I'd like to try another method to insure I didn't miss anything.

Thanks!
Danny
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Re: EPUB testing criteria

Post by
ka.li
»
Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:59 pm
I use Codex to convert it into a compressed HTML file. I know this is a slightly different format but the conversion does an excellent job of retaining tags and formatting from the EPub file. Everything is combined into a nice HTML file which means that you can open this and be able to find anything you want to know regarding formatting, tables etc. I do this only for making sure elements are properly coded. I will still use an EPub reading application to go through the book so I can test any EPub specific features that may be lost upon conversion.

Also, the criteria looks great.

A suggestion I have for the alt-text section is to check if the language used in the description matches the tone of the book and age of the potential reader. For example, a children's story book shouldn't have complex difficult words in the image description.

In the tables section, not sure if we should combine questions 1 and 2 since if the table is navigable then the table wouldn't be an image. Also I'm not sure when question 3 asks "are they adequately described?" Is that referring to clear labels for column and rows?

When the text section asks if foreign language can be easily distinguished, does that mean that we should be checking for if our screen reader switched over to speaking that language?

Finally, it may be helpful to include a section on any mathematical content and whether we can read equations etc.
ka.li
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Re: EPUB testing criteria

Post by
Daniella.LP
»
Tue Oct 09, 2018 5:30 pm
This is very helpful, thank you. We must indeed include criteria to test files that have media overlays. Besides looking at the code for tags etc., are there any features we could look for in a file from within an application or reading device, anyone?
Heidi wrote: Fri Oct 05, 2018 12:13 pm I would just like to add a few suggestions:
Some EPUB books provide audio narration synchronized with the text using media overlays. If you have received such books from publisher's in the past, it may be helpful to create testing chriteria for this situation. The W3C's Epub Accessibility 1.0, standard 4.4.2 defines accessible media overlay requirements.
If audio or video content is included in the book and the multimedia contains information not available within the text, WCAG guideline 1.2.1 recommends that an accessible alternative is provided.
If color or other visual styling is used to convey meaningful information within the text, are nonvisual cues available? For more information, please see WCAG guidelines 1.3.3 and 1.4.1
Each HTML document within an EPUB book, such as a chapter file, should contain a meaningful <title> element. I've just read an EPUB book that contained no titles within it's individual HTML files. When this occurs, my EPUB reader placed the word "unknown" at the top of the document text. Please see WCAG guideline 2.4.2 for more information
Is a link's purpose clear from it's context? Does a link's text adequately describe what it does? An epub file I just tested contained no link text within a few of it's anchor tags. Please see Guideline 2.4.9

I hope you will find some of these suggestions to be of help. I wish all of you a great day!
Daniella.LP
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:20 am
Contact:

Re: EPUB testing criteria

Post by
Daniella.LP
»
Tue Oct 09, 2018 5:41 pm
Many thanks for these suggestions. Yes, it makes sense to combine the two table questions. I will rewrite question 3 to clarify it, I was referring to reading row and column title. Good point about including some questions for math and equations.

Yes, the switching language question is meant to ask if the language changed automatically. Although that may also depend on the application, it is likely that the coding in the EPUB file has to specify the change.
ka.li wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:59 pm I use Codex to convert it into a compressed HTML file. I know this is a slightly different format but the conversion does an excellent job of retaining tags and formatting from the EPub file. Everything is combined into a nice HTML file which means that you can open this and be able to find anything you want to know regarding formatting, tables etc. I do this only for making sure elements are properly coded. I will still use an EPub reading application to go through the book so I can test any EPub specific features that may be lost upon conversion.

Also, the criteria looks great.

A suggestion I have for the alt-text section is to check if the language used in the description matches the tone of the book and age of the potential reader. For example, a children's story book shouldn't have complex difficult words in the image description.

In the tables section, not sure if we should combine questions 1 and 2 since if the table is navigable then the table wouldn't be an image. Also I'm not sure when question 3 asks "are they adequately described?" Is that referring to clear labels for column and rows?

When the text section asks if foreign language can be easily distinguished, does that mean that we should be checking for if our screen reader switched over to speaking that language?

Finally, it may be helpful to include a section on any mathematical content and whether we can read equations etc.
Daniella.LP
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:20 am
Contact:

Re: EPUB testing criteria

Post by
Heidi
»
Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:47 pm
I also use Codex to convert an EPUB document to HTML. It's a great multipurpose tool I use on a regular basis, even converting Kindle files to HTML.
I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving!
Heidi
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Re: EPUB testing criteria

Post by
rmarion
»
Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:24 am
Thanks for the program name for converting ePub to HTML. I had tried Caliber earlier this year on the last project, and had mixed results depending what platform I used to do the conversion.

I do know with the language issue, if the file is coded correctly, when using Kindle or Apple Books it does switch Voice Over to the correct language setting for that section of text.
rmarion
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Re: EPUB testing criteria

Post by
Danny
»
Wed Oct 10, 2018 9:53 am
A big thanks from me, too, Ka Li and Heidi! Really appreciate the Codex recommendation. Great stuff.
Danny
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Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:17 am
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