Cyber-Sierra Workshop 2002: Accessible Webs
     

Building Accessible Web Sites

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Public institutions are working to make web pages accessible to all.

It's the Law: Section 508

In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Inaccessible technology interferes with an individual's ability to obtain and use information quickly and easily.

Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals.

The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508 (29 U.S.C. ‘ 794d), agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.

Many states have also adopted 508 standards for state agency sites and Conservation Districts may be required to comply.

Public institutions all have legal statements that in some part say that they cannot discriminate. The web, up to now, has been overlooked when accessibility issues have been considered. By designing a page that is built according to the World Wide Consortium Guidelines, your pages will be more ADA compliant, but they will also be more universally accessible to all browsers, now and in the future.

While Section 508 does not yet apply to private sector or nonprofit web sites, it makes economic sense to construct a web site that reaches the widest audience possible.

Some Barriers for audiences using your web pages

Visual barriers

  • No vision
  • Low vision
  • Color blindness

Audio barriers

  • No hearing
  • No sound card
  • Poor quality of audio

Learning or cognitive barriers

  • Unable to "click" (physical barrier)
  • Poor directions (image maps)
  • Lack of familiarity with web
  • Uncommon use (no underlined links)

Economic barriers

  • Old computers
  • Slow access
  • Public access only

Fortunately, nearly every barrier can be addressed by simply building good web pages with clean code and paying attention to potential trouble spots. You can use color, sound, images, most animations, javascript, tables, frames, and make your pages beautiful.

Accessibility isn't about creating dull pages, it's about creating pages that give every visitor the maximum experience possible. Be Creative!

More Information:

Section508.gov
This government master-site has a online training, details on the implementation of Section 508 and much more. This is a good site for all agency personnel involved with web site management.
 
Web Authoring That Works: Web Site Accessibility
This class is adapted from an electronic class originally given by Jeanne Wiebke, Iowa State University Extension, and Linda Folliott, University of Arizona, for Agricultural Communicators in Education (ACE) and National Extension Technology Conference (NETC) members. This is a six-segment electronic class aimed at web site developers and managers to help them become familiar with web site accessibility issues and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
 
I strongly encourage you to save-file the web pages to have the information available offline for reference. The course itself is very readable. The terminology is in HTML, so you may need to refer to the The Bare Bones Guide to HTML to help you through.
 
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