Week 2: Children's Stories - Two Books to Review and Questions

We've been making books and we would like to hear how accessible they are from your perspective, and what we can do differently to make them better.
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Week 2: Children's Stories - Two Books to Review and Questions

Post by
jennlortie
»
Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:13 am
Here are two children's books on the NNELS websites, and we would love if you could provide feedback for both!

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe: https://nnels.ca/items/chronicles-narni ... d-wardrobe

The Incredible Twisting Arm:
https://nnels.ca/items/incredible-twisting-arm

Questions to consider while reading:

Question 1. How easy is it to navigate through the book? Do you think the intended audience would find it easy?
Question 2. Do you have any suggestions to improve the accessibility of these books to children?
Question 3. In Incredible Twisting Arm, we list the instructions for the magic tricks in the alt text and in the main body in a Producer’s Note. Is this a good approach?
Question 4. What file types do you prefer? Are there file types a child might prefer?
Question 5. How do you like the alt text in these books? Do you think it's appropriate for the audience?
Question 6. Any other suggestions?
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Re: Week 2: Children's Stories - Two Books to Review and Questions

Post by
ryano
»
Mon Feb 26, 2018 4:58 pm
I have no problem with download it in all three epub which transfer it in to ibook on laptop and ms word also I am able to open it into Daisy but still unfamiliar with Daisy as it transfer into internet browser. With Daisy I noticed it have link if click on link then it will refer to behind of the book into html text form code.

I will prefer ibook more easy to read and the picture are clear as well in black and white.
ryano
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Re: Week 2: Children's Stories - Two Books to Review and Questions

Post by
ryano
»
Mon Feb 26, 2018 5:04 pm
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe I can only access it to ms word files. I noticed first picture of may are well describe, but notice there is no other describle of the picture. For example the photo black background of three tree filled with white snow and ground white. Have light lamp in the middle of picture.
ryano
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Re: Week 2: Children's Stories - Two Books to Review and Questions

Post by
farrah
»
Thu Mar 01, 2018 12:15 pm
Hi Ryan - You can display DAISY books on the internet browser by locating and opening the XML file (for DAISY 3) or the content.html file (DAISY 2.02) that is in the folder.
Farrah
ryano wrote: Mon Feb 26, 2018 4:58 pm I have no problem with download it in all three epub which transfer it in to ibook on laptop and ms word also I am able to open it into Daisy but still unfamiliar with Daisy as it transfer into internet browser. With Daisy I noticed it have link if click on link then it will refer to behind of the book into html text form code.

I will prefer ibook more easy to read and the picture are clear as well in black and white.
farrah
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Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2018 10:50 am
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Re: Week 2: Children's Stories - Two Books to Review and Questions

Post by
rmarion
»
Mon Mar 05, 2018 11:24 am
I had a chance to read the Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. I read the book using the iPub format on the NNELS website. Generally I found the book to be very accessible. I don’t have any major suggestions for improving the book. I did however notice a couple of minor issues when reading the book straight Through.

ON page 68 where there is a photo of the beaver’s house under the snow, the description would not read when reading the entire document; I happened to notice the description when I stopped reading the book and scrolled through the page manually. Therefore, if someone who did not have any sight was reading this book on a device that uses iBooks or another ePub reader, they may not realize this photo exists. I did find that for the most part the text would work fine without any descriptions of the photos. But it was nice to have the descriptions of the photos or drawings as it helped to give a better idea of the given situations being described in the text.

Generally I felt that the amount of description in the photos generally worked as the surrounding text offered enough description as we may not have had to know that the photos in some cases portrayed snow on the ground under trees for example. I think the descriptions offered enough information to give the reader a general idea of what the photo was without adding information that would slant the reader’s opinion of the emotional state of the characters based on the description’s viewpoint.

If I have any additional comments, I will post them later on.
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Re: Week 2: Children's Stories - Two Books to Review and Questions

Post by
Daniella.LP
»
Mon Mar 05, 2018 2:43 pm
Question 1. How easy is it to navigate through the book? Do you think the intended audience would find it easy?

I found it easy to navigate using the headings in Word, as well as navigation features in Voice Dream and in Read2Go. I think that children using a device or app that permits heading navigationn, it would be easy.
I like the simplicity of the Victor Stream and I think that because of the tactile buttons, this and other DAISY players may be good for children, although some children use iPads very well, too.

Question 2. Do you have any suggestions to improve the accessibility of these books to children?

I think that the descriptions provided enhance the accessibility for children, and would even allow them to comment about the drawings with friends who read the same books. I notice that
Sometimes when I read continuously in Word, the alt text is not always read, or are not read in their entirety, as was the case with The Reluctantt Communist (this may be a setting in JAWS; I will explore and report later.

This topic has made me wonder if you guys have produced books in which the reader selects from different options? I remember my father reading them to me in Mexico; the translation for that type of book in English would be something like "Choose your own adventure"; they may well have been translated from English into Spanish. I can imagine that those books can be challenging to produce. I would imagine that readers may approach them by adding bookmarks to be able to return to them later. Also adding more headings to facilitate navigation to different options.

Rayuela, by Julio Cortázar (not a book for children) presents different options to the reader. I will check if it is available in the NNELS website, but I can imagine that that one may be challenging to produce.

Question 3. In Incredible Twisting Arm, we list the instructions for the magic tricks in the alt text and in the main body in a Producer’s Note. Is this a good approach?

Although the producer's notes repeat some of the content of the book, especially in The Incredible Twisting Arm, I think this is a good approach for the intended audience. Young children may appreciate the detailed descriptions in alt text along with the instructions in steps.

Question 4. What file types do you prefer? Are there file types a child might prefer?

I prefer .DOCX files, because: they are smaller/faster to download/transfer; and I can read them in more devices/apps than DAISY files. DAISY is great in terms of navigation, and I would imagine that a child may find DAISY easier to navigate.

Question 5. How do you like the alt text in these books? Do you think it's appropriate for the audience?

Yes, I think it is appropriate for the audience. I like the descriptions of the drawings in both books. Although the descriptions for the magic tricks in The Incredible Twisting Arm are a bit repetitive, for a children's audience they seem appropriate.

In The Incredible Twisting Arm, one of the producer's notes appears to be out of place/in a different section: the instructions for the balance of power trick appear on p 46 in the Word file, but this trick was part of chapter 3, P. 17.

Note: in the instructions to palm a coin in p. 37, the producer's note on step two reads: "There is an image of a left handing holding..." should it be "hand" instead of "handing"?

Also in the instructions for palming a coin, the producer's note kind of cuts the flow of the narrative; the next paragraph begins with "Which made Mike think of something." The note/image descriptions would be better after that sentence, so as not to interrupt the idea.

Also, it may be useful to separate the producer's notes more clearly and provide a way to easily navigate to them. I imagine that adding a heading may not be the best approach, because it would not follow the structure of the published file; but perhaps using three asterisks to separate the notes as if they were different sections would be a way to do it.
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Re: Week 2: Children's Stories - Two Books to Review and Questions

Post by
ka.li
»
Tue Mar 06, 2018 7:17 pm
Question 1. How easy is it to navigate through the book? Do you think the intended audience would find it easy?

I think the intended audience would find it easy to navigate through both books because one of the earliest things students learn is to jump by headings for quick navigation.

Question 2. Do you have any suggestions to improve the accessibility of these books to children?

Not that I can think of for the moment.

Question 3. In Incredible Twisting Arm, we list the instructions for the magic tricks in the alt text and in the main body in a Producer’s Note. Is this a good approach?

Yes. I think it is a good approach because readers can navigate through the instructions in whatever granularity they wish e.g. by characters, words, lines etc. If you were to put all the instructions in alt-text, that type of navigation would not be possible in Microsoft word because when you try to navigate by word/line on the image, it will read the entire alt-text.

Question 4. What file types do you prefer? Are there file types a child might prefer?

I think these file types are fine. Teacher's of the visually impaired will try to expose young students to technology and file formats that they will need to continually work with as they get older.

Question 5. How do you like the alt text in these books? Do you think it's appropriate for the audience?

In the Incredible Twisting Arm, there were a few images (see pages 14 and 75) where you introduced the reader to the characters depicted by name before the text stated their name. Could the reader determine based on the photos alone what the name of the characters were? If not, it might be helpful to say "the aunt" and "dark haired man" and leave it there. Otherwise, the reader might get confused and perhaps wonder where those names came from.

In Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, I noticed a couple of descriptions saying that something is quaint. That line seems a little out of place compared to the rest of the description. what other details in the picture give off the impression that the scene shows a quaint setting.

Question 6. Any other suggestions?

Nothing else for now. :)
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Re: Week 2: Children's Stories - Two Books to Review and Questions

Post by
Karoline
»
Mon Mar 12, 2018 6:52 am
I just read the Lion The Witch and Wardrobe. I love the descriptions. Why does it sound like the descriptions are repeated?
Karoline
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Re: Week 2: Children's Stories - Two Books to Review and Questions

Post by
Karoline
»
Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:21 pm
Question 1. How easy is it to navigate through the book?
It was easy to get through both books. Do you think the intended audience would find it easy?
Question 2. Do you have any suggestions to improve the accessibility of these books to children?
No. Overall, they were really nicely done. I have read Lion Witch and Wardrobe in the past, but reading it with the descriptions of the pictures, made it so much better.

Question 3. In Incredible Twisting Arm, we list the instructions for the magic tricks in the alt text and in the main body in a Producer’s Note. Is this
a good approach?
I think you don't need to do it twice. If it is part of the text, it is likely fine. I do like the producer's note though as it got my attention to the instructions.
Question 4. What file types do you prefer? Are there file types a child might prefer?
I like the Word format, and anything that could be read by a reader. I just find PDFs maybe difficult for children to handle.
Question 5. How do you like the alt text in these books? Do you think it's appropriate for the audience?
It was very appropriate. Both books were very enjoyable.
Question 6. Any other suggestions?

Not at this point.
Karoline
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