Accessibility in Digital Publishing: A GAAD Q&A with Simon Mellins

May 21, 2026

By David McGrath, Partnership Development Manager at Nxtbook Media

Every day, millions of readers are locked out of the vital content they need. While modern digital media fundamentally shapes how the world learns, works, and connects, standard publishing formats still present massive barriers for individuals with visual, auditory, physical, or cognitive impairments. For too long, the digital publishing industry has relied heavily on rigid PDFs, broken keyboard navigation loops, and media stripped of vital asset descriptions—effectively leaving a massive global audience completely in the dark.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) serves as our annual wake-up call to change that narrative. True digital inclusion is no longer a post-production afterthought or a minor corporate box-checking initiative; it is a fundamental human right. Meeting this industry-wide challenge requires moving far beyond a basic compliance checklist. Forward-thinking teams must embrace proactive, inclusive design principles from day one, ensuring every single user gets an equal, elegant reading experience on any device.

To get an authentic reality check on where the industry currently stands—and exactly where it needs to go—we sat down with a leading voice in accessible digital publishing: Simon Mellins.

As a premier digital publishing consultant and host of The Digital Publishing Podcast, Simon has spent his career turning accessibility advocacy into practical action. He regularly contributes to W3C committees to shape the future architecture of the web. During a transformative tenure at Penguin Random House UK, he spearheaded ebook accessibility initiatives that established a new gold standard for trade publishing workflows. Simon is also the co-founder of the UK Publishing Accessibility Action Group (PAAG), a powerhouse network driving inclusive publishing forward.

Simon specializes in breaking down complex web accessibility standards into practical, profitable strategies for global publishers and technology vendors alike.

In celebration of GAAD, Simon joins us to share ten vital insights on the evolution of digital platforms, upcoming regulatory shifts, and how content teams of any size can achieve WCAG compliance to make their digital content universally accessible.

Below are a few snapshots of our conversation. To read the complete, unedited interview and explore the interactive experience yourself, check out the full Q&A with Simon Mellins on PageRaft.

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GAAD is all about raising awareness, but action is what matters. In your experience, where is the digital publishing industry currently thriving with accessibility, and where is it still falling dangerously behind?

Simon Mellins: It’s difficult to characterise the industry as a whole, as some sectors and even individual publishers are at drastically different points within their accessibility journeys. I’d say that on the whole the publishing industry is making good progress with most aspects of accessibility for frontlist publications in regulated markets, with the main pain points remaining being getting image description into workflows in a practical way; tagging words in languages other than the publication base language; accurate accessibility metadata production and consistently accessible design, particularly in terms of colour contrast minimums. Beyond that, all parts of the publishing world are massively struggling to know what to do with their backlist/catalogue publications, both in terms of understanding their regulatory duties and the practical aspects of actually carrying out the required remediation, and the attendant resources required.

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Many publishers still treat accessibility as a “nice-to-have” add-on at the end of production rather than a foundation. How do we shift the industry mindset from “compliance checklist” to “inclusive design”?

Simon Mellins: I think that part of this will happen naturally with time, as those having to carry out the work later in the progress become more and more aware of the inefficiencies that this approach can cause (and even serious schedule/pub date problems) – but also as new publishing professionals enter the workforce and learn about accessibility from early in their careers as just part of ‘business as usual’. Another thing that will likely turbocharge the way publishers look at accessibility and resource provision for it will be when a publisher in a regulated market is successfully prosecuted by a regulatory body and/or a court. The lack of case law and precedent at the moment is leading to a somewhat sputtery start and cloudy understanding of just what the contours are of the legislation, and how rigorously it will be enforced in each market.

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When looking at digital publishing platforms, whether for corporate brochures, magazines, or reports, what are the non-negotiable accessibility features a publisher should look for before buying?

Simon Mellins: It’s vital that content writers and editors are given the tools to create accessible materials right from the authoring stage, rather than as a QA stage later on. For instance, all authoring platforms should provide easily accessible user interface cues to add alt text to images, proper table creation tools, and a way to indicate ordinal values (i.e., the order that elements should be read in, e.g., by a screen reader). Other useful features would include colour contrast detection and warning (based on the values from WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.4.3), simple ways to indicate intended language (to help screen reader software to select the right voice) and ideally a broad range of output options for final formats, to ensure print disabled readers can select a format that would best suit their needs and their technical setup and preferences.

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Taking the Next Step Toward True Digital Inclusion

Achieving meaningful digital accessibility isn’t just about meeting regulatory benchmarks or dodging compliance risks—it’s about opening your content to millions of readers who are locked out by traditional, rigid layouts. As Simon pointed out, shifting from a reactive “remediation” mindset to an active, inclusive design workflow saves time, protects your budget, and respects the rights of your audience.

Ready to see what a fully optimized, interactive, and accessible publication looks like in action?

We couldn’t fit all of Simon’s incredible insights here. To explore the technical implementation strategies and read the rest of the discussion, view the complete Q&A with Simon Mellins on PageRaft.