Section 508 and Accessibility – Social and Technology Considerations

Americans with disabilities constitute the third-largest minority in the U.S., numbering in the 30-PLUS millions. Too often they are excluded from the mainstream of American life by negative attitudes and inaccessible environments. In addition to physical disabilities, the U.S. population is rapidly aging. Aging brings about the need for accessible technology in two ways. First, as people age, existing mild difficulties and impairments can become more severe. Second, people are likely to develop new difficulties and impairments as they age.

As the US population ages, more US workers and computer users will notice changes in their abilities and experience difficulties and impairments. At the same time, older US workers will remain in the workforce long past previously expected retirement ages, Particularly with the recent economic downturn, maintaining productivity among US workers—regardless of abilities, difficulties, and impairments will become an increasingly vital economic issue for US businesses as the population continues to age.

In 1990, 40% of the US population was younger than 35 years old; by 2010, only a third will be younger than 35. In 2010, the majority of the US population will be 45 years and older, a change that represents a major turning point for the US population demographic. With changing demographics, disabilities will likely touch us all. Statistics show an individual has a 20 percent chance of becoming a person with a disability and 50 percent chance of having a family member with a disability.

How does the federal government address disabilities from a technology perspective?

In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Under this amendment, Section 508, federal agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.

With respect to websites, the Section 508 rules assure accessibility to web page graphics by the visually impaired using assistive technology such as screen readers and refreshable Braille displays. This is accomplished by using text labels and descriptors for graphics.

While the Section 508 amendment defines a framework for enhancing technology for people with disabilities, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) lays out more specific standards and guidelines for designing websites. You can find details of the W3C standards on the W3C website: http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/

Implementation of Section 508 and W3C

The W3C consortium was founded by the inventor of the Web – Tim Berners Lee. The W3C publishes open (non-proprietary) standards for Web languages and protocols, W3C seeks to avoid market fragmentation and thus Web fragmentation. These standards include standards for creating web content that is accessible. The W3C standard (more specifically the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0) (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/) is a more detailed standard, than those defined by the Section 508 guidelines (http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=content&ID=12#Web). A designer should review both standards when thinking about designing or remediating websites.

Although these standards should be used, creating an accessible website can be more than just adding skip navigation, alternative text for images and proper color contrast. Today's websites are moving to Web 2.0 technologies such as Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), input forms or Flash Applications. AJAX is a group of interrelated web development techniques used to create interactive web applications or rich Internet applications. The challenge to the W3C: keep pace with the rapidly advancing browser-based functionality.

The W3C has also developed a working draft to address the newer browser-based technologies. The Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Version 1.0 draft defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities. It especially helps with dynamic content and advanced user interface controls developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies. The working draft can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/.

Important Questions to Consider:
How do you provide alternative text for moving images or color-coded world maps, such as those used in flash applications?
How do you provide alternatives for text forms?
How can you make PDF generators fully compliant?
Have you tested your website with disabled users in an accessibility lab?

Compliance Reporting

Although there are several commercial products on the market that will provide compliance reporting, human review is critical to achieving Section 508/Accessibility compliance. If you have specific questions regarding accessibility, a good resource can be found at http://www.accessifyforum.com/.

Impacts of Non-Compliance

Although the Section 508 standards are not legally binding in the commercial world, companies are beginning to take note of their importance. In February 2006, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) filed a $6 million class action on behalf of all blind Americans who are being denied access to www.target.com. The named plaintiffs are the NFB, the NFB of California and a blind college student. Today, a settlement has been announced in the class action lawsuit whereby Target has committed to making their web site accessible and usable by blind customers. In addition, Target has provided $6 million to settle claims for damages to be allocated to blind shoppers in California who were not able to use the Target site. Federal Agencies are also becoming increasingly aware of the need for compliance of their sites as a result of feedback from the public. The challenge to federal agencies - create a site that is technologically up to date, while maintaining accessibility standards.

Conclusion

As web technologies advance, Section 508 standards have been relatively slow in keeping up. For example, sites that use interactive technologies such as Flash, web forms, or AJAX (Advanced Javascript and XML) can be a challenge with respect to making them compliant. Accessibility standards such as Section 508 and the WCAG 2.0 are critical components in the development of any website. By developing and adhering to these standards, we ca ensure that public websites are inclusive and that they reach as much of the population as possible.

Sources: Microsoft Study "The Wide Range of Abilities and Its Impact on Computer Technology", W3C / WCAG Guidelines, Section508.gov.