What's New

July 4, 2025 — New "partial pass" status

It is now possible to set success criteria to a partial pass status. This status better reflects if some effort has been made to meet the requirements. The reasons why a partial pass is being given should always be cited in the note field.

Publications will still fail conformance when criteria only partially pass since not fully meeting success criteria is a failure in WCAG 2.

July 4, 2025 — Enhanced accessibility information in reports

Reports now include a new accessibility tab that incorporates the display statements defined in the Accessibility Metadata Display Guide for Digital Publications 2.0.

This tab turns the accessibility metadata reported into a set of human-readable statements.

July 4, 2025 — Consolidated metadata tab

As the accessibility metadata that can be expressed in the EPUB package document and in ONIX records has largely converged, the Discovery and Distribution metadata tabs have been consolidated into a new Metadata tab.

The choice of which format to generate is now provided when you choose to output metadata tags from the SMART tool.

July 4, 2025 — New metadata for evaluators

The Reporting tab has been updated to provide a more comprehensive set of fields. It is now possible to set the evaluation date, indicate if any exemptions apply to a publication, and specify a contact email for more information about the accessibility of a publication.

July 4, 2025 — New output method

The options to output reports and metadata have been consolidated in a new dialog box. To generate these outputs, click the "create outputs" button (visually, a plus sign inside a circle) at the top right of the evaluation interface.

July 4, 2025 — No more automatic defaulting to lesser compliance statements

In the past, the SMART tool would automatically adjust the reporting result to claim conformance to WCAG Level A if a publication failed at Level AA. As a result, it was not possible to generate a failure report at Level AA for jurisdications where this level of conformance is required. It could also lead to evaluators missing that the publication was not conforming at the level they had specified.

If a publication meets Level A conformance but fails Level AA, all evaluators have to do to create a report at the lower level is switch the setting in the conformance tab. Changing the WCAG version or conformance level does not undo the work you have completed, so you can always switch back without loss of information.

May 8, 2024 — Updated report format

The evaluation reports now have sticky headers so that mouse users do not have to scroll back to the top to change tabs. This change does not affect existing reports.

May 3, 2024 — Updated distribution metadata

The layout of the Distribution tab has been updated to include the descriptions for each onix value. In addition, it is now possible to add a ProductFormFeatureDescription for onix fields that accept additional information.

March 19, 2024 — Accessibility metadata wizard

A new metadata wizard is available for beta testing on the Discovery tab. The wizard leads you through a series of questions about the publication to produce the metadata. Notably, it will add access modes and sufficient access modes based on the responses given.

Feedback about the wizard is welcome, not only for bug reports but also for improvements that could be made. Please open issues in the SMART GitHub tracker.

February 23, 2024 — Added specification to all reports

In the generated reports, the version of the EPUB Accessibility specification and WCAG tested against was only reported if the publication passed. This information is now available regardless of the outcome. The specification is also on a separate line from the test status.

September 21, 2023 — Updated distribution metadata

The Distribution metadata tab has been updated to match the new values available in ONIX code list issue 62. Included in the new release are fields for indicating conformance to the new EPUB Accessibility 1.1 specification and also for complying with the European Accessibility Act. The new release also includes many new fields for accessibility features as well as more descriptive titles for many of the codes.

May 26, 2023 — Updated discovery metadata

The Discovery metadata tab has been updated to include values for the latest accessibility features: ARIA roles, open and closed captions, page break markers, and page navigation. It is also now possible to state that publications do not contain flashing, sound, or motion simulation hazards.

The Discovery tab also now includes more robust validation of the metadata fields.

May 18, 2023 — Adding evaluator metadata associations

The evaluator metadata generated in the Result tab now includes associations between the fields. The evaluator is linked to the conformance result, and the evaluator's credential and report is linked to them.

May 18, 2023 — Added certifier credential field

The Result tab now includes a field for inputting a credential. This metadata is currently only used to generate metadata for the EPUB package document, but its use may be expanded to the final reports in the future.

November 18, 2022 — Experimental support for WCAG 2.2

SMART now supports evaluating EPUB publications against the WCAG 2.2 Candidate Recommendation. Evaluators are advised to only use this option for experimentation at this time, however. WCAG 2.2 may change again before becoming a final recommendation.

October 26, 2022 — Unlimited access

We have removed the restriction on creating reports for non- Inclusive Publishing Partner members. SMART is now available without restriction to everyone.

Existing accounts that were restricted to two reports a month have been migrated to unlimited access. It is not necessary to create a new account.

The login page has also been updated to better introduce the tool to users.

August 15, 2022 — Updated EPUB Accessibility 1.1 support

The EPUB Accessibility 1.1 specification made a couple of significant changes during the Candidate Recommendation phase. The conformance statement made in the dcterms:conformsTo property now uses a more human-readable pattern. The accessibilitySummary property was also changed from required to recommended to include.

The SMART tool now incorporates these changes in the experimental support for the standard.

August 15, 2022 — Ace support updated

The SMART tool now handles errors from the aXe 4.4 rule set reported by Ace.

July 11, 2022 — Support for EPUB Accessibility 1.1

Ace SMART now includes support for evaluating EPUB publications against the new Accessibility 1.1 specification!

On the Conformance tab, you can now select the 1.1 specification from the options at the top to begin an evaluation. Selecting this version will also allow you to change the WCAG conformance field to 2.1. SMART has also been updated to output the new conformance strings for Accessibility 1.1 specification.

This feature is still considered experimental as the specification is not yet a W3C Recommendation (i.e., it is still possible that it will change).

July 11, 2022 — New statistics box

The Conformance tab now includes a statistic box that reports how many success criteria have passed, failed, are not applicable, and have not yet been checked. This box remains fixed as the page scrolls.

July 11, 2022 — New ONIX values

The Distribution tab now includes support for ONIX Code List 196 values 25 through 29 and 93.