08.11.2024New study finds low accessibility of PDFs in Swiss repositories

Our team has investigated the accessibility of PDF documents stored in Swiss repositories. The results of our investigation are alarming: less than 11% of the documents in Swiss repositories have the minimum accessibility features (tags and hierarchical heading structures).

In addition, interviews with repository operators revealed that there is a lack of knowledge about the accessibility of PDFs and that this topic has a low priority. The results of our study show an urgent need for action. Institutional commitments to accessibility are needed, be it through awareness raising, the definition of accessibility as a requirement or the provision of document accessibility services.

To find out more, you can read  our article " The state of scientific PDF accessibility in repositories : a survey in Switzerland "