Benetech announces the release of the latest service from its Global Certified Accessible family of offerings: the Benetech Approved Publishing Tool. This groundbreaking service is designed to provide creators of publishing tools with a pathway to independent validation and approval of their products by the global leader in accessibility standards and compliance.
Equitable and accessible content for all readers is not only a matter of social justice, but also a commericial opportunity. The Benetech Approved Publishing Tool meets the needs of publishing industry providers to respond to growing legal pressure to ensure that your products and your clients comply with new and expanding legal requirements to ensure that all content and systems are accessible. And fully accessible products are typically better products for all readers, since the higher level design required yields better functionality, better user satisfaction, and better results. Fully accessible content presents the opportunity to engage with the 20+% of potential readers who can not use digital content that is not properly accessible.
The Benetech Approved Publishing Tool uses a straightforward process available to any organization that creates and provides publishing tools anywhere in the world, from an entire publishing platform to a widget, app, or specific service such as alt_text descriptions. If your tool is part of the publishing ecosystem, it should be part of the Benetech Approved Publisher Tool program.
The process is simple:
Once you have completed the testing, your product will be approved for a period of one year and you will be awarded the Benetech Approved Publishing Tool icon. During that course of that year, you will receive regular communication from Benetech around upcoming changes in the global accessibility standards, any updates in our process, and advance news, information, and findings from our work with other members of the Benetech Approved Publishing Tool community.