Accessibility

Our website

Accessibility (a11y) is important to us. We are committed to making our website and content platforms accessible to everyone, including people who are blind, visually impaired, dyslexic or otherwise disabled. To this end, Kogan Page follows the accessibility guidelines published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) with the long-term aim of conforming to Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible and user-friendly for people with disabilities. We want everyone who visits the Kogan Page website to find it easy to use.

Our content platform

The KoganPage+ ebook platform is WCAG 2.1 compliant except for the ereader, which will be compliant by July 2024.

Our ebooks

Kogan Page is proud to be one of a growing number of publishers in the world to receive Benetech’s Global Certified Accessible accreditation for ebooks. This award is the gold standard for accessible publications and certifies that Kogan Page has demonstrated conformance to accessibility guidelines set forth by the Global Certified Accessible Consortium, which are based on standards put in place by the W3C and the international publishing community.

Since 2012 Kogan Page has worked with RNIB Bookshare UK, an online library of accessible publications, to make our ebooks available to persons who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print disabled at the same time as the print editions are published. In 2022 Kogan Page joined Redshelf’s Accessibility Student Accommodations Program (ASAP), which offers a similar service for Redshelf customers. Kogan Page is a signatory to the Accessible Book Consortium’s Charter for Accessible Publishing and the PAAG Charter for Accessible Publishing both of which promote the production of ebooks in accessible formats.

Since 2019, our ebooks have been published in PDF, MOBI (Kindle) and EPUB formats. We produce EPUB3 files, by far the most accessible format, and ensure that they conform to W3C standards WCAG 2.1 Level AA and EPUB Accessibility 1.0 and are validated by Ace, by DAISY and our in-house validation tools, which make sure ARIA roles, EPUB types, accessibility metadata, and alt text and long descriptions for imagery and tables are present and correct. (Note that in June 2021 Amazon stopped requiring publishers to produce MOBI files. EPUB is now the one ebook file we supply to all vendors.)

Our EPUB3 files have a logical reading order and include mark-up and structure to ensure easy navigation and compatibility with assistive technologies (AT) such as screen readers. Though our EPUBs are inherently highly accessible, the reading experience for users will depend on the reading tool/platform being used to view the EPUB and whether any digital rights management (DRM) is applied. Most reading tools allow users to:

• change the fonts and increase/decrease font size (the text can be comfortably read at 400% magnification)
• reflow text to fit various screen sizes and change the margins and line spacing
• adjust colour and contrast to improve legibility (eg some dyslexic readers prefer non-white backgrounds)
• enable text-to-speech functionality (which is often available natively within reading engines)

We also provide high-quality text descriptions for images and tables, which can be found in a dropdown space below the images/tables and can be toggled open and closed. The text is accessible to screen readers and sighted readers so all can benefit from the additional resource.

Books published before 2019 are all available as ebooks (in various formats including PDF, MOBI, EPUB2 and EPUB3). However, these historical titles feature varying levels of accessibility. All PDFs include navigable table of contents as bookmarks. The majority of the MOBI, EPUB2 and EPUB3 files feature some level of structural navigation and a logical reading order but none include image descriptions.

Our partners

You can find our ebooks on various sites and ebook platforms:

To find out how well these sites and platforms work with assistive technologies such as screen readers, we recommend looking at their accessibility statements, most of which are collated on the ASPIRE Platform site.

We recommend VitalSource Bookshelf and Redshelf platforms. Both have invested in making the reading experience accessible and they highlight accessibility features at product level, so users can see whether a book is suitable for their needs before they purchase or open the book. Learn more about the accessibility features of VitalSource Bookshelf and Redshelf.

Kogan Page do not apply DRM restrictions to content. However, third-party platforms that provide access to our ebooks may apply their own DRM rules, control access to intermediate copies and follow different privacy and licence terms (T&Cs). Copying and printing restrictions are dependent on the platform – the limits are usually 10% of the book or one chapter (whichever is greater).

Our Marketing

Kogan Page want to ensure that all our customers have an accessible customer journey. We aim to achieve this by following best practice for alternative text, branding and design across our marketing platforms – including our website, email campaigns and social media. This is an ongoing process, and we are committed to improving our accessibility to ensure we can better serve all our readers and include everyone’s needs.

Awards

ABC International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing

In 2022, Kogan Page won the ABC International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing. 'Kogan Page was recognized for developing a production workflow that ensures its front list titles are fully accessible for people who are print disabled. Built to international standards, this bespoke workflow has been certified as Global Certified Accessible (CGA) by Benetech, a world leader in the accessibility field. The jury also cited Kogan Page’s advocacy of an accessible chain of distribution for people who are print disabled.'

IPG Independent Publishing Awards

Kogan Page won the Digital Publishing Award for its Accessible Ebook Programme in 2020. This award recognizes the publisher's investment in a born-accessible workflow, dedication to providing accessible ebooks to all readers and involvement with the wider accessibility community. Judges said, ‘This is important work. Kogan Page’s commitment to accessibility is to be applauded.’

The Stationers’ Company Innovation Excellence Awards

In 2021, Kogan Page won the prestigious Product Design Award for its Accessible Ebook Programme.

ASPIRE

ASPIRE, the verification service for accessibility statements in the publishing industry, gave this page a gold rating. See where we rank on the ASPIRElist.

Shortlisted awards

• DAISY Award for Accessibility 2019 (Digital Book World)
• ABC International Excellence Award in Accessible Publishing 2019 (London Book Fair)

Requests for accessible files

Kogan Page have partnered with RNIB Bookshare UK and Bookshare US to provide accessible digital files of our content. All Kogan Page ebooks are made available through these services on publication. The request process is automated and content is provided for download immediately.

There are no additional licence terms or restrictions on use once a file has been approved by these organizations under their membership terms. No personal details about specific medical history are required as part of the licensing terms for Kogan Page content through these providers.

Contact

If you have any questions about accessing or navigating our website, content platform or ebooks, please email accessibility@koganpage.com. We aim to respond to all accessibility queries within five business days.