Intro

It’s important for angels with disabilities to know the following limitations of my E-Books: the poem audio must be clicked to play it, the audio is at a soft volume, and the keyboard navigable Table of Contents headings are not nested despite being tagged. Please consider if you will be able to use my E-Book before you buy it. Trying the freebie called “How Angels Pray” is the best test of usability. However, if you cannot use an E-Book you bought due to a disability, that is my only exception to my otherwise no-refunds sales policy. Upon being refunded, you will lose access to the product. 

Being self-published, I’ve done what I can as a non-professional, and plan to hire a coder when I have the means. 

Unless otherwise noted, this is based on using the NVDA screen reader, with desktop layout, in document mode, on Chrome. Details and tips from my tests are below, as well as what to expect from book behavior and layout.

Poem Audio Must Be Clicked

• The poem audio cannot be activated using the keyboard, not even by tabbing and entering on the page, or by going to Buttons list in the f7 menu.
• Once you are on a book page and you click to stop the automatic reading then click on the page again, you can tab for interactive elements on the page itself. When there are no links on the page, it does not recognize anything else as interactive and goes on to announce the Table of Contents button, which cannot be entered on. The audio button is not announced and must be clicked with a mouse (or tapped by hand on mobile), to initially play the audio. 
• The poem audio button is always located in the top left quadrant of the book page. Specifically, it is immediately to the left of the poem title, so you can use the poem title as a guide when hovering over text. On second and third pages of a poem, the audio is in the top left corner of the book page.
• Once the audio has been activated, you can control the playback menu through the keyboard, to select pause or play, timeline, volume, and playback speed.
• Especially important for written word poems with no author audio, once you click on the book page, you can use the keyboard to have the screen reader read the whole poem as normal.
• On mobile, using Apple’s VoiceOver, it would not recognize the audio button when swiping over it by hand, even with image descriptions and screen recognition on, and even when numbering the interactive elements for voice command.  I could only tap the audio to play it when VoiceOver was turned off.

Poem Volume is Soft

• Due to vocal constraints and technical inexperience, poem audio volume is quiet, and is still soft at 100% device volume. It requires earphones at a high volume for comfortable listening. If soft volume is an issue, the author’s audio may not work for you, but a screen reader can still read the text.
• Screen reader tools, and the E-book’s own “Read from here” feature, are way louder than the poem audio. Adjust volume as needed when going between poem audio and screen reader audio, especially if you’re using earphones.
• On written word poems without audio, hidden punctuation helps screen readers read them as intended.

Table of Contents Navigation is Not Nested

“How to: Craft a Patchwork Hope” has the most complicated nesting and is mainly where Table of Contents navigation is a concern.

Option 1– Insert + f7, then “Filter By”

• Headings in my books are tagged in a hierarchy. But the keyboard accessible Table of Contents brought up with insert + f7 is not nested accordingly, and lists irrelevant items like zoom buttons.
• I recommend “Filter By” and enter on a section to navigate there faster.
• In “Hope to The Hopeless”, you can filter by “Pre” to go to the Pre-Content section, or by “Autumn”, “Winter” or “Spring” to jump to the start of the respective poem sections.
• In “How to: Craft a Patchwork Hope”, you can filter by “Pre” to go to the Pre-Content section, or by “Step” to just list the 8 step sections, or by “Appendix” to go to the first page of the many post-content sections.
• The presentation of the f7 menu seems to randomly change between sometimes having subsections all listed out which is a lot to arrow through, and sometimes only listing the main sections which cannot be expanded to list the subsections.

Option 2– Tab through each page title 

• When you have flipped to any page, and have not clicked anywhere on the page yet, tabbing will go through the whole Table of Contents without opening the visual Table of Contents panel. It says “Button” and the current page’s number, then lists all page titles that you can enter on. It is not grouped by sections, and you cannot search to filter. 

Option 3– Table of Contents List in Book Page

• After the Pre-Content section, a Table of Contents is found as pages inside the book itself, listing all content after that point.
• In “How to: Craft a Patchwork Hope”, the step sections are tagged as heading 2’s.
• In “Hope to The Hopeless”, using the Table of Contents inside the book is not recommended, because the single word section headings could not be tagged and keep their link.

Not Recommended Option– Click then Hover on Contents Panel

• The visual Table of Contents panel, opened from the top left corner of the reading screen, is not navigable with a keyboard. But it is readable once you have clicked it and you hover your mouse over each list item. It has expandable sections that are initially closed, but does not announce when an item is expandable.

Book Behavior, Book Layout, and Page Layout

Book Behavior

• The book reopens at the page where you left off.
• The alt-text for images is read as normal.
• You can open external links by tabbing and entering as normal.
• For internal links to other book pages, it announces the slide number not the page title, but you can still tab and enter on the links.
• You can find Headings with H on almost all pages. If the Table of Contents headings are read before the current page’s headings, go backwards shift + H to find the current page’s headings. Headings of different levels are not read in the correct order.
• Once you click on the page, you can flip to the previous or next page with Caps Lock + left or right arrow, or swipe (on mobile), as normal.
• Everyone is allowed to login to each E-Book using two devices per E-book. A different browser on the same device is somehow counted as a separate device.
• I recommend using the Chrome browser for the best E-Book loading and performance.

Book Layouts

• “How Angels Pray’ is only 19 pages. There is a Pre-Content section, then the poems, then a few post-content pages.
• “Hope to The Hopeless” has a Pre-Content section, then 47 poems arranged in 3 seasons, then a few post-content pages. 
• “How to: Craft a Patchwork Hope”  has the most complicated nesting. There is a Pre-Content section. The main content is organized into 8 steps. Most steps include at least one poem. Each step includes multiple chapters. Some chapters include activities. The Appendix section has many sub-sections, mainly Dedication, Affirmations, and Credits. The Credits are split further.

Main Types of Page Layouts

• Poem pages include the Poem Title as a Heading 1, and the poem body. The play audio button is in the top left quadrant of the book page (if the poem has audio). Specifically, it is immediately to the left of the poem title, so you can use the poem title as a guide when hovering over text. On second and third pages of a poem, the audio is in the top left corner of the book page.
• “How to: Craft a Patchwork Hope” chapter pages include the Chapter Number and Chapter Title as Heading 1’s, and the chapter body. If the Chapter has an Activity, the Activity title is a Heading 2, with parts of the activity nested as Heading 3’s. But the activity Heading 3’s get read before the Heading 2.

Contact

Please email ContactHopeNotLess@gmail.com if you need assistance. Write “Accessibility” for your email subject, as I prioritize these emails. I do my best to answer emails in a few business days.

Much love,

Margot Emmeline | Hope. Not Less.