Resources

For everyone

1) Analysis and Summary of questionnaire

A field survey was carried out in France, Italy and Lithuania in the spring of 2024. A total of 246 children and 48 teachers, parents and educators were accompanied by project partners in their discovery of the book Ben wants a bat. The aim was to gather information on the uses and needs of children and accompanying adults, and to use this feedback to improve the EPUB3 Flex Picture Ebook. Companions were provided with a teaching guide to help them make the most of the many possibilities offered by this digital book.

At the end of the reading session, the children and accompanying adults respectively answered a 48-question and 42-question questionnaire.

Summary of questionnaires for download.

Full analysis for download.

2) Scientific articles

1) Article ‘Flex Picture eBook Builder – Simplifying the Creation of Accessible eBooks’.

Read the article by Danya Gharbich, Maximilian Punz, Klaus Miesenberger and Valentín Salinas-Lopez, researchers at Johannes Kepler University Linz in the ‘Institut Integriert Studieren’ laboratory, published in the Springer journal, on Flex Picture Ebooks epub.
Article available here

2) Article ‘Educazione all’immagine tattile’ (in English)

Read the article by Enrica Polato, researcher at the University of Bologna, on representations of blind children in the Italian magazine ‘Toccare le parole’.
Article available here (automatically translated into English)
Article in Italian

3) Article ‘Flex Picture eBook: A new approach to designing more accessible and inclusive images and text’.

Read the article by Danya Gharbieh, Maximilian Punz Junior Scientist, Klaus Miesenberge, researcher at Johannes Kepler University in Linz (Austria) within the ‘Institut Integriert Studieren’ laboratory, and Sophie Blain, director of the publishing house Les Doigts Qui Rêvent, in Talant (France), published in the journal STUDIUM EDUCATIONIS, on Flex Picture Ebooks epub.
Article available here

Caregivers

For parents and for teachers

1) Download installation instructions

2) Download the teaching guide

3) Download the appendices to the teaching guide

a_Iconographic_Sheet-FPE_EN

b_Sound effects effects in the order of their appearance in the story

c) 2 colouring pages to print

“Classic” Colouring

Colouring_Ben

Colouring_Bat

Adapted coloring

This adapted colouring file for severely visually impaired children can be used in 2 ways: printing with conventional ink, or printing to inflate the ink with a PIAF oven. In the 2nd case, the tactile outlines will help children locate the areas to be colored.

d-Files of relief drawings to download for printing and inflation in the PIAF oven

relief bat & octopus

relief ben and the bat

relief ben flaps wings bat folded wing

relief cave and bats

relief mosquito mouse

4) Alternative texts for images

During the development of the digital book, an alternative text was included for each image so that blind readers could also access the content of the images. Each alternative text is read by a computer-generated voice using assistive software. If you prefer to read the texts aloud yourself for young blind children, you can download them in PDF format.

Publishers

For all content producers, publishers and transcribers, content developers and producers, the Flex Picture Ebook team has developed tools to streamline the production chain for your accessible illustrated EPUB3s.

1) A methodology for designing accessible illustrated content

This methodology has several components:

  • A practical guide to adapting images for readers with disabilities
  • A step-by-step guide to drawing up specifications for adapting an illustrated book into an accessible illustrated digital book for readers with disabilities
  • A step-by-step guide to understanding how to help neuro atypical children understand text

2) Illustrator Flex Picture Ebook plug-in

This plugin helps you adapt your drawings into multi layered, interactive svg images, that can be included in the Flex Picture Ebook Format.

  • Download the Adobe Illustrator Flex Picture Ebook plug-in (available for Windows and MacOs)
    If the interface is empty, your computer does not support unsigned plugins.
    Adobe has removed all means of signing ours, so you need to activate it manually.
    On Windows :
    Type ‘regedit’ in the search window that opens when you press the Windows key.
    regedit > HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Adobe/CSXS.11, then add a new PlayerDebugMode entry of type ‘string’ with the value ‘1’.
    On a Mac :
    Open a terminal window (for me, it’s under Launchpad->Other->Terminal, or just write ‘Terminal’ in launchpad).
    Then write and press enter :
    defaults write /Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.CSXS.11.plist PlayerDebugMode 1
    Replace ‘<username>’ with the username you use to connect to your Mac.
  • Watch the tutorial video
  • If necessary, download the source code for the Flex Picture Ebook Builder

3) The Flex Picture Ebook Builder

The FPE Builder is a software package we have developed to help you create your enriched illustrated EPUB3. It allows you to organise the content (text, files for each illustration with its different levels of simplification, audio files) as well as the menu proposed to readers at the beginning of the book:

4) Article

Read the article by Danya Gharbich, Maximilian Punz, Klaus Miesenberger and Valentín Salinas-Lopez, researchers at the Johannes Kepler University Linz in the ‘Institut Integriert Studieren’ laboratory, published in the Springer journal on Flex Picture Ebooks.

Article available here (in English): Flex_Picture_eBook_FPB_Adaptable_Non_Text_Content_for_Better_Accessibility_and_Usability