[Irl-dean] Survey of Accessible PDF

[Joshue O Connor]

A recent survey by Alan Cantor (http://www.cantoraccess.com/) conducted
in September 2006, people with disabilities were asked to describe their
experiences with the Portable Document Format (PDF). Respondents were
asked to relate stories of, for example, PDF enhancing accessibility,
and PDF causing access problems.

Almost 50 responses were received from people with a range of
disabilities, content providers, and accessibility experts. In some
cases, the researcher sought clarification by following up with
respondents by telephone or e-mail.

In addition, researcher conducted a literature review on PDF
accessibility, focusing on articles published within the last year.

Analysis of the data indicated that:

    * Properly tagged PDFs are fairly accessible to a wide range of
people with disabilities.
    * Untagged PDFs may be accessible.
    * Navigating through PDFs without a mouse has improved in recent years.
    * Documentation and resources on how to create accessible PDFs are
widely available.

Nevertheless, reliable access to PDFs remain elusive:

   1. Many people who use assistive technologies encounter inaccessible
PDFs regularly.
   2. Although the tools, techniques, and resources to create fairly
accessible PDFs exist, the gap between the potential for good
accessibility and what happens in the field is very large.
   3. Some of the characteristics of PDF, such as visual fidelity and
security settings, work against good accessibility. Because PDF was
designed to assure identical visual experiences for all users,
regardless of software installed on the computer, the format inherently
makes information secondary to presentation.

For more on his findings have a look at:

http://www.cantoraccess.com/Handout%20PDF%20survey.doc

Josh




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