Accessibility at Pressbooks
The Pressbooks Team is committed to practices that ensure all people, including those with disabilities, can benefit from the knowledge-sharing and creative expression that happen through our platform.
Accessibility is built into the core of Pressbooks, making it easier for educators and institutions to create digital content and learning materials that are inclusive for everyone.
Pressbooks’ Commitments to Accessibility
As a team, we make the following commitments around accessibility:
- We strive to develop technology and services that provide equitable access to information for all people.
- We create solutions that empower users to comply with the accessibility laws that exist in most countries.
- We continually improve our platform and tools so that all humans can have a productive experience.
- We advocate for and empower the creation of accessible learning materials.
- We take a human approach, leading our design processes with empathy and consultation.
- We are transparent about our accessibility commitments and progress, with published documentation including Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) reports.
Download our VPATs
Our latest Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) reports assess how Pressbooks conforms to the WCAG 2.2 standards at the A and AA levels. We provide separate reports for the Pressbooks reading interface and the Pressbooks authoring platform.
View our roadmap
We’re continuously improving our platform to better support accessibility for our platform and for the digital materials people create and publish using our platform. Our accessibility roadmap includes more details about planned future improvements.
What is a VPAT?
A VPAT is a standardized document that helps organizations evaluate how well a digital product meets accessibility standards. Read our blog post for a refresher on VPATs and why they matter to anyone interested in making technology and learning accessible for everyone.
Why VPATs matter
VPATs help educators make informed decisions about how well a tool they’re considering adopting will support learners’ needs and satisfy accepted standards for digital accessibility accessibility. For technology providers, VPATs signal their commitment to supporting the needs of diverse learners.
How Does Pressbooks Approach Accessibility?
Designing for accessibility
At Pressbooks, one of our core commitments is proactively ensuring that our platform and the content people publish with it are accessible to all. The Pressbooks Team puts time and care into ensuring accessibility is baked into the platform, rather than added as an afterthought.
Empowering users to make content accessible
We empower users to make their learning materials accessible in two important ways. First, we design a user experience that makes it easy to follow accessibility best practices (ex. color contrast, alt text, header structure, formatting, etc.). Second, we provide clear guidance and documentation about how to use Pressbooks accessibly. Equipped with this support, most users can easily achieve their accessibility goals and make learning environments more inclusive.
How can I verify Pressbooks’ accessibility commitments?
We continually review our products and make the latest VPAT reports available on our website. We engage well-qualified, third-party experts to assess our software against defined targets and advise us on how to address any compliance gaps they identify.
Publishing Accessible Content with Pressbooks
Creating accessible digital books is a shared responsibility between Pressbooks and our authors. While we design and maintain the platform with accessibility in mind, authors play a key role in ensuring the content they create is inclusive and usable for all readers.
As an author, you can follow several relatively simple best practices to improve the accessibility of your book — from using proper heading structure and alt text to ensuring clear language and navigation.
Our User Guide includes seven straightforward ways you can improve accessibility in the work you publish digitally with Pressbooks. You’ll also find other helpful tools and resources to guide you in publishing content that is accessible for everyone.
Accessible Authoring for Accessible Content
Pressbooks has earned a strong reputation in the field by supporting accessibility in two distinct ways:
- Making it easy to create and publish accessible learning materials
- Providing an accessible authoring platform that can readily be used by people with disabilities