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Creating a Section 508 Accessible Site

Guest post by: michelle crossley

Article Overview: If you are a web developer by profession, you should be knowledgeable with Section 508 Standards. Such standards aid website developers in making sites accessible for all; primarily for disabled users, visually or auditory impaired. In fact, as per federal regulations, government websites should comply with the guidelines as outlined by Section 508. With heavy reliance we place in the internet for learning, employment, healthcare, social networking, research, and more, it is crucial for sites to be accessible for all.

Creating a Section 508 Accessible Site

If you are a web developer by profession, you should be knowledgeable with Section 508 Standards. Such standards aid website developers in making sites accessible for all; primarily for disabled users, visually or auditory impaired. In fact, as per federal regulations, government websites should comply with the guidelines as outlined by Section 508. With heavy reliance we place in the internet for learning, employment, healthcare, social networking, research, and more, it is crucial for sites to be accessible for all. These steps are a good overview of what is involved when designing a Section 508 accessible site: Know about WCAG: You should know about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which will give you information about various web applications like images, text, forms, sounds etc. to make your site content available to people with disabilities. These guidelines published by Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) will give you an insight into what factors you need to keep in mind while designing the site. Check your site online for compliance: You can use some reliable, online accessibility validation solutions that help you to identify errors in your web content related to WCAG guidelines or Section 508 standards. The free tool Cynthia Says can validate one page at a time. Know about different State policies: Different states in the US have different laws and policies that are applicable for web accessibility with respect to Section 508. Based on the site’s targeted readers and the business location, you should comply with the US States Policy Guidelines where the business will be conducted. Keep various disabilities in mind: You should design your web pages so that they benefit more than a few disability groups at a time. Consider the limitations of your intended users who may be operating in circumstances pretty different from yours, like: * They may find it difficult to read or comprehend a text. * They may have an impaired vision, audibility, movement, or may not have the ability to process specific types of information easily. * Their browser may be of an early version or a different one from what the general web surfers use these days. * They may have difficulty using a mouse or keyboard. * They may not understand or speak the language that the web page text uses. * They may have a small screen, a text-only screen, or a slow Internet connection. Make your images accessible: While some users have text-based browsers that offer no support for images, some others may have a slow Internet connection that has made them to turn off support for images. There may be some users who are unable to see images. So, you should use ALT tags on your images, which is similar to providing a text equivalent of your image to make it accessible. Using text and non-text equivalents: You can present the information included in your web pages in the form of text equivalents like Braille, synthesized speech, and visually-displayed text. Since there are many people who are blind, have learning disabilities or cognitive disabilities, suffer from deafness, using non-text equivalents like a video of a person narrating a story using sign language or an auditory description of a visual presentation can also be used. Using captchas in both visible and audible mode are also useful for such purposes. Help users to download free screen reader talking software: You can embed a link in your web pages to help people who are blind or visually impaired to download a free screen reader talking software like the one at Screenreader, which will help them to overcome the digital divide and access your site’s content. Colors and fonts requirements: You should design your web pages so that the information conveyed with color is also accessible without color, for example from markup or context. Ability to adjust font sizes should also be considered, which will help those with low vision. Your fonts should be consistent throughout the site. Though you can use decorative, crazy or customized fonts in your site as images, don’t forget to add the ALT tags or they won’t be crawled by the search engine robots. Accessibility without Style Sheets: To create a Section 508 accessible site, you should organize your documents so that they are readable without the need of an associated style sheet. Staying away from Flash: People suffering from visual impairments or those who use text readers without major modifications won’t be able to access Adobe Flash. So, it helps if you stay away from designing a Flash based site as the same won’t be Section 508 compliant. Image Maps: In case of a server-side image map, you should provide adequate text links for every active region. Except for regions that cannot be defined with an existing geometric shape, you should give preference to using client-side image maps over server-side image maps. Accessibility of tables: The column and row headers of your data tables should be identified. For data tables having two or more logical levels of column or row headers, you should use markup to associate header cells and data cells. Accessibility of frames: Frame identification and navigation should be made easier by adding titles with text. Frequency of flickering lights/images: You should design your web pages so that they don’t cause the screen to flicker a lot. Usually, the accepted level is over 2Hz and below 55 Hz. Alternative to scripting languages: When you use scripting languages to display content of your web pages or to generate interface elements, you should make provisions for functional text that helps to identify the information provided by these scripts, which can read with the help of assistive technology. Timed Responses: When a specific section of your site needs timed responses, you should use elements to alert the user. Also, ensure that the user has sufficient time or is given indication when more time is required. Electronic Forms: When you design electronic forms that need to be completed on-line, ensure that such forms allow people to access the required information like field elements, functionality etc. with the help of assistive technology, so that the user can complete and submit the form using all directions and cues. Plug-Ins and Applets: If you web page needs a plug-in, an applet, or other application that should be present on the client system to interpret your page content, you should design the page to have a plug-in, a link to or an applet that complies with §1194.21(a) through (l). Please check the Official WCAG and Section 508 websites mentioned above for more indepth details in creating an accessible website.

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Article Tags: accessibility, Accessible, designer, developer, Section 508, Standards, US State Policy guidelines, W3C, WCAG, website development



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