Publication Agency, Kyobo, and Aladin Lower Barriers to E-book Access for People with Disabilities and the Elderly

37 Accessibility Features Including Font, Color, and Table of Contents Navigation Applied
Digital Reading Environment Enhanced for People with Disabilities, the Visually Impaired, and the Elderly

The Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea announced on March 23 that it will launch improved services starting in mid-March, following the results of its "Support Project for the Development of Accessibility Viewers for Persons with Disabilities," which aims to enhance the e-book experience for information-vulnerable groups, including people with disabilities.

E-book image. Photo by Clipart Korea

This new service applies accessibility features to the Apple operating system-based applications (apps) of Kyobo Book Centre and Aladin. The agency has been pursuing this project to improve e-book accessibility for information-vulnerable groups such as people with disabilities, those with visual impairments, and the elderly.

On June 26 of last year, the agency signed a "Business Agreement to Improve E-book Accessibility for Digital Inclusion" with Kyobo Book Centre and Aladin, officially launching the initiative. The project focused on implementing a total of 37 accessibility features in the apps of each distributor.

Key features include screen settings such as font size, font style, and text color, color contrast and display adjustments, convenient table of contents and page number display and navigation, as well as functions for reading and linking to special content such as images, tables, and footnotes. Through these improvements, the convenience of e-book use for information-vulnerable groups is expected to be significantly enhanced.

Beyond simply improving features of private distributors, this service is also meaningful in that e-book accessibility technologies developed by the agency have been directly applied to the private sector. The agency plans to use this as an opportunity to raise the overall level of accessibility across the digital publishing industry.

An agency official stated, "We will continue to improve accessibility throughout digital publishing services so that all citizens can enjoy reading in a discrimination-free environment."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.