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Digg it UP - Section 508 - Your site is compliant, but is it accessible?
Negotiation: Do You Want a Good Deal or a Great House? blockquote>Periodically, I interview car dealers, Realtors and various business people to get their input for my negotiation seminars and corporate training programs.A young Realtor, whose dad has also been in the field for decades with a prominent firm, recently mentioned it is paramount for buyers to have a talk with themselves befo Is the previous HTML code compliant? Yes. Accessible? No, because the alt-tag is meaningless. It does not describe the product in the picture. Accessible and compliant: Only with a meaningful text equivalent will the site be accessible to blind people. How can you confirm your website's accessibility?< 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. (Summary of the law from Section508.gov) Simply put, the government wants information technology (including web sites) to be accessible to people with disabilities like blindness, deafness, dyslexia, and quadriplegia. Section 508 suggests how to do that. But there's a catch. Compliance with Section 508 does not guarantee accessibility Notice the difference between validation and verification.
Perhaps you use a Section 508 checklist to guide your web development. Checklists assume that web sites which comply with the law will be more accessible. But Section 508 requirements leave a lot of room for interpretation. They leave a lot of room for good and for bad design decisions, as the following example demonstrates. Example of inaccessible compliance Section 508 §1194.22a requires that "a text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided." For example, we could create an image to comply with Section 508. Inaccessible but compliant: Is the previous HTML code compliant? Yes. Accessible? No, because the alt-tag is meaningless. It does not describe the product in the picture. Accessible and compliant: Only with a meaningful text equivalent will the site be accessible to blind people. How can you confirm your website's accessibility? Simply put, the government wants information technology (including web sites) to be accessible to people with disabilities like blindness, deafness, dyslexia, and quadriplegia. Section 508 suggests how to do that. But there's a catch. Compliance with Section 508 does not guarantee accessibility Notice the difference between validation and verification.
Perhaps you use a Section 508 checklist to guide your web development. Checklists assume that web sites which comply with the law will be more accessible. But Section 508 requirements leave a lot of room for interpretation. They leave a lot of room for good and for bad design decisions, as the following example demonstrates. Example of inaccessible compliance Section 508 §1194.22a requires that "a text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided." For example, we could create an image to comply with Section 508. Inaccessible but compliant: Is the previous HTML code compliant? Yes. Accessible? No, because the alt-tag is meaningless. It does not describe the product in the picture. Accessible and compliant: Only with a meaningful text equivalent will the site be accessible to blind people. How can you confirm your website's accessibility?<
Perhaps you use a Section 508 checklist to guide your web development. Checklists assume that web sites which comply with the law will be more accessible. But Section 508 requirements leave a lot of room for interpretation. They leave a lot of room for good and for bad design decisions, as the following example demonstrates. Example of inaccessible compliance Section 508 §1194.22a requires that "a text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided." For example, we could create an image to comply with Section 508. Inaccessible but compliant: Is the previous HTML code compliant? Yes. Accessible? No, because the alt-tag is meaningless. It does not describe the product in the picture. Accessible and compliant: Only with a meaningful text equivalent will the site be accessible to blind people. How can you confirm your website's accessibility?< Example of inaccessible compliance Section 508 §1194.22a requires that "a text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided." For example, we could create an image to comply with Section 508. Inaccessible but compliant: Is the previous HTML code compliant? Yes. Accessible? No, because the alt-tag is meaningless. It does not describe the product in the picture. Accessible and compliant: Only with a meaningful text equivalent will the site be accessible to blind people. How can you confirm your website's accessibility?< Is the previous HTML code compliant? Yes. Accessible? No, because the alt-tag is meaningless. It does not describe the product in the picture. Accessible and compliant: Only with a meaningful text equivalent will the site be accessible to blind people. How can you confirm your website's accessibility? Automated tests are insufficient because they cannot judge the meaning of words. They merely check to see if words exist, which is a good start. How can you really know if your web site is accessible? Try it out, test it under real-world conditions. Observe a real disabled person in action. Then you will know if your web site is accessible or merely compliant.
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