For this piece, “publishing tech” spans the tools and touch points that shape how books are created, distributed, discovered, and used: writing and layout software, e-book/audiobook production tools, retailer and library platforms, reading apps and devices, and the cross-cutting layers (e.g., UX, accessibility plug-ins, AI) that influence each stage.
Across that ecosystem, neurodiversity covers a wide range of cognitive differences—dyslexia, ADHD, autism, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, auditory/sensory processing differences, and more. As accessibility advocate and author Jeff Adams notes, these differences can affect “perceiving information, operating a user interface and/or a device, and understanding those elements.” Ultimately, accessibility choices made by product teams ripple across every user group: authors, publishers, and readers.
Accessible Content vs. Truly Equitable Access
Accessibility consultant Mélissa Castilloux defines accessible design in publishing as “the intentional creation of content, distribution systems, and reading platforms that provide equitable access for all readers—regardless of disability, cognitive profile, or preferred way of reading.” She stresses that equity means access at the same time, with comparable effort, and at no greater cost.
Castilloux’s lived experience makes the stakes clear. As a dyslexic university student, she often purchased audiobooks to keep up with reading, then had to buy a second digital copy to find page numbers for citations—double the cost and effort. For her, accessibility fails when the book is technically “accessible” but the surrounding pathway—storefronts, digital rights management, device compatibility, discovery—blocks real use.
She also urges a broader, more nuanced lens on neurodiversity: Many readers can “functionally” read but at a steep cognitive cost. Accessible publishing must be flexible and comfortable, not just technically usable. And because no single format serves everyone, diversity of formats and pathways is essential.
The State of the Stack
Adams sees meaningful improvement alongside persistent deficits. Despite 25 years of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and new regulations (including the EU’s Accessibility Act), gaps are common on websites, devices, e-books, and production software. The good news: “Accessibility is being worked on more than ever before,” he says, which suggests continued improvement if organizations treat it as core, not optional.
On everyday author sites and campaign pages, Adams regularly encounters low color contrast, missing alternative text for images, and unclear or duplicated link text—each increasing cognitive load for neurodiverse users. He also flags a key product principle: Don’t override built-in accessibility features on devices. Publishing tools should work with operating-system controls (contrast, fonts, text size, screen readers), and they should be tested with a diverse set of real users—because what helps one person with dyslexia or ADHD may hinder another.
Castilloux agrees that progress is real but fragile and too often fragmented. Accessibility metadata illustrates the problem. Platforms may now display it, but if publishers don’t supply accurate data, the promise breaks. She also highlights a neglected use case: research and study. Many “accessible” reading apps optimize for leisure reading but lack robust tools for annotation, citation, and reference management, leaving students and professionals to juggle less accessible PDFs because research ecosystems still revolve around them. Without better study-grade EPUB workflows and reader features (e.g., highlighting, tagging, exporting citations), accessibility for serious work remains incomplete.
Finally, she argues that audio is still undervalued and underfunded—even though, for many neurodiverse readers, audiobooks aren’t supplemental; they’re primary. Inconsistent metadata, thin public infrastructure, and a “bonus content” mindset limit access and affordability, she says.
Audio Description and Captions
Richard Rieman—the “Audiobook Wizard” and founder of Imagination Storybooks, now producing accessible children’s audio and video books—sees both promise and lag. “We’re living in the most promising time I’ve ever seen, but we’re also frustratingly behind where we should be.” Major platforms “are finally taking accessibility seriously,” he says, but many publishers still bolt it on late: “It’s like building a house and then trying to add wheelchair ramps as an afterthought.”
Rieman’s work shows how features designed for one group can benefit many. He calls rich audio description (AD) in illustrated children’s books a “game-changer” for blind and low-vision readers—and powerful for neurodiverse kids who struggle with visual processing or attention. “I’ve seen children with dyslexia absolutely flourish when they can hear detailed descriptions of illustrations while following along. It creates multiple pathways to understanding.” For deaf children, synchronized captions and ASL interpretation are key.
His accessible adaptations of classics demand careful timing and tone so AD feels “baked in,” not bolted on. Casting can also model inclusion: in The Accessible Wonderful Wizard of Oz, “the entire voice cast is blind or low vision, including Aria Mia Loberti as Dorothy, and Bruce Horak as the Scarecrow.”
Rieman also points to funding pressures for public-interest accessibility programs. He notes that the National Association of the Deaf’s Described and Captioned Media Program faces steep grant cuts, an example of how fragile the broader infrastructure can be even as demand grows.
Metadata and Discoverability
If readers can’t find accessible formats, accessibility doesn’t land. Adams welcomes recent steps like Amazon adding an “accessibility” section to e-book product details and asking KDP uploaders about image alt text, but he says that accessibility is far broader than alt text. Publishing tools need to expose and validate accessibility features at creation, and retailers should surface fields that actually matter to families and educators.
Rieman lists the must-haves: whether the work includes audio description, captions/transcript, reading level and age, language, narration type (human vs. AI), and education-aligned tags. Without this “card catalog of accessibility,” families can spend hours hunting content that still may not fit a child’s needs.
Where AI Helps
Adams, Castilloux, and Rieman see potential in AI—with caveats:
- Adams is optimistic about agentic AI that can carry out multi-step tasks (“upload this EPUB and cover to these platforms”), removing interaction barriers. He also says that disabled creators already use AI to streamline workflows, but he says that reliability and design integration still lag.
- Castilloux says AI is supportive, not substitutive. It can lower the effort to draft alt text, generate high-quality voices, caption in real time, translate, or summarize for readers with attention challenges, but human review, lived experience, and QA are essential to avoid bias, loss of nuance, or privacy trade-offs. Absent strong foundations (born-accessible EPUBs, rich metadata, flexible platforms), AI risks becoming yet another retrofit that pushes the burden back onto readers.
- Rieman says that “AI is a powerful assistant, not a replacement.” Use it for draft-and-detect; keep humans in authorship, voice, and QC—especially for children’s content where emotional nuance and cultural context matter, he says. He offers one pragmatic exception: the Be My Eyes integration in ChatGPT (openai.com/index/be-my-eyes), built “by blind people for blind people,” can yield strong illustration descriptions when carefully prompted.
Inclusion by Design
Castilloux’s top recommendation for platform teams is to bring disabled and neurodivergent people in from the first design discussions, not just as late-stage testers. History shows that features designed for specific barriers often improve usability for everyone. Or as Rieman puts it more simply, don’t treat accessibility as an afterthought.
Adams adds a market reality check: Around a quarter of adults live with a disability, and another significant share experiences temporary or situational impairments. Ignoring accessibility leaves readers—and revenue—on the table, and it carries rising legal risk.
Helping Readers Thrive
Accessibility is good design. It reduces cognitive load, expands formats that many readers prefer (especially audio), and strengthens the entire reading pipeline—from creation to discovery to everyday use. Progress is real, but it’s fragile without sustained coordination, funding, and product choices that respect user agency.
“Content must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust,” Adams says, principles that work only when they’re embedded in tools and platforms, not tacked on. Castilloux pushes us to aim beyond “usable” toward comfortable, flexible environments that help readers thrive. And Rieman shows how thoughtful audio description and captioning can unlock stories for many kids at once: neurodiverse, blind, deaf, and beyond.
Dos and Don’ts of Inclusive Design
- Respect device-level settings. Don’t disable or conflict with OS accessibility controls; design to interoperate with them.
- Prioritize customization over prescriptions. Readers need to set fonts, spacing, contrast, and clutter levels to match their preferences and context.
- Don’t over-sell “dyslexia fonts.” Benefits are inconsistent; spacing, layout, and familiarity often matter more.
- Design for study, not just leisure. Accessible EPUBs need research-grade tooling: highlighting, notes, citation export, integration with reference managers.
- Build audio thoughtfully. Rich AD, high-quality captions, and optional ASL can broaden comprehension for many users, not only those with sensory disabilities.
- Make links clear and unique. Ambiguous or repeated link text increases cognitive load; link the specific destination (e.g., book title) instead of generic phrases.
Practical Steps for Indie Publishers
- Start with an accessible EPUB. It preserves adaptability (fonts, spacing, text-to-speech, braille displays). Avoid locking content in PDFs unless truly necessary.
- Use basic checks, then go deeper. Free tools like Ace by DAISY (daisy.org/activities/software/ace) catch common EPUB issues; follow with expert review and user testing, ideally involving people with lived experience.
- Build accessibility into the workflow. Treat it as a process, not a patch. Training and light process redesign pay outsized dividends.
- Leverage community and services. For audio description and quality control, Rieman recommends the Described and Captioned Media Program (dcmp.org), Audio Description Creation (audiodescriptioncreation.com), the Audio Description Network Alliance (theadna.org), and Descriptive Video Works (descriptivevideoworks.com), as well as Learning Ally (learningally.org) for blind readers.
Alexa Schlosser is the managing editor of IBPA Independent magazine. Is there a topic you think IBPA should be covering that we aren’t? Let her know at alexa@ibpa-online.org.