Audiobooks have been considered “accessible by default” for the length of their existence, but the reality is that audiobooks aren’t fully usable by everyone in their current state. In this presentation, we’ll demonstrate the possibilities of audiobook accessibility through a series of demos. techforum.booknetcanada.ca #TechForum

1. The Most
Enjoyable
Audiobook in
the World
Marisa DeMeglio & Wendy Reid

2. Hello!
Marisa DeMeglio:
Editor of
Synchronized
Narration
Software Developer
@ DAISY
Wendy Reid:
Editor of W3C
Audiobooks, Co-chair
of the Publishing
Working Group
QA @ Kobo
2

3. Agenda
Introduction to
Audiobooks
Overview of the format
and how it works
Introduction to
Synchronized
Narration
What is synchronized
narration and how
does it work with
audiobooks?
3
The Most Enjoyable
Audiobook in the
World
Live demo

4. Audiobooks
4

5. What is a W3C Audiobook?
Audiobooks is a specification (or
recommendation) being produced by the
Publishing Working Group at the W3C
(World Wide Web Consortium), the folks
who brought you HTML, CSS, and many
other amazing web things!
5

6. A better reading experience
Table of contents:
Enables users to
explore a book in a
non-linear way. Also
good for finding a
section quickly.
Not just audio:
Audiobooks can also
include HTML,
images, and other
resources.
6

7. Accessibility
7
The same content in different modalities can be
tied in using the @alternate feature.
And, all Audiobooks can be fully accessible to all
users using audio, text, and Synchronized
Narration.

8. What’s under the hood?
Manifest: All
Audiobooks use a
JSON-based
manifest file to tell a
user agent (or
player) everything a
user needs to know
about the content.
Reading Order: A list
of all of the audio
files in the
audiobook, what they
are, how long, and
what order to play
them in.
8

9. … there’s more!
Resources: A list of
all of the additional
content an
audiobook might
have, like a table of
contents, images, or
supplemental
content.
Packaging: All
Audiobooks can be
packaged using a
ZIP-based format
called LPF
(lightweight
packaging).
9

10. Synchronized
Narration
10

11. Matching Audio and Text
11
The Synchronized Narration specification is
a method for content creators to
synchronize two types of media together.
For Audiobooks, this means matching text
to audio resources.

12. Born Accessible
Using Synchronized Narration together with
Audiobooks gives content creators the
chance to create fully accessible content.
Creating content using these specifications
means producers can create content once
for all users, instead of using specialty
formats or multiple versions for different
markets.
12

13. How do they
work? A live demo.

14. Demo 1: Audiobooks
In this demo we’ll play a standard audio-
only audiobook and show some of the
features of the specification.
14

15. Demo 2: Audiobooks+
Now, let’s look at the same content, but with
an HTML page associated with each
chapter, via that @alternate feature we
mentioned earlier.
15

16. Demo 3: Audiobooks++
Fully accessible synchronized text+audio
book, using Audiobooks plus Synchronized
Narration.
16

17. THANKS!
Any questions?
You can find us by email at wendy.reid@rakuten.com
& marisa.demeglio@gmail.com, or on Twitter
@wendy_a_reid & @mdmgl
17