Section 508 isn’t something many people run out to learn and more than likely, most of you haven’t a clue what the law is about and who it’s for. As for myself - I’ve been working with it for awhile now but mostly in the development aspect. Today I decided to take the plunge and read the full law and the material surrounding it.
While I’m not completely through it, I thought I would document what I’m learning here for those few that would also like to know my findings.
First, What is Section 508?
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires access to electronic and information technology procured by Federal agencies. The Access Board developed accessibility standards for the various technologies covered by the law. These standards have been folded into the Federal government’s procurement regulations.
Great, now we’re all on the same page right? Well, let me try to simplify that. Section 508 is a law that got passed to insure all information is accessible to everyone despite their situation (blind users, cognitive disabilities, etc…). Now that we’re on the same page, at least I think we are, I’m going to go through the law and pull out pieces that jumped out at me.
The scope of section 508 is limited to the Federal sector. It does not apply to the private sector, nor does it generally impose requirements on the recipients of Federal funds.
This was both interesting and surprising to me. I had the understanding that any government agency had to adhere to Section 508. This, I thought, included groups like the City of Holland, any group receiving Federal funding in any form.
One thing people should see coming in the future is the move from the Federal sector to the private sector. Right now that’s not the case but just like we have handicap ramps and building codes that require accessibility for people in wheelchairs - the same will happen here. It starts at the government level but then filters down to local businesses and individuals in years to come.
Section 508 uses the Federal procurement process to ensure that technology acquired by the Federal government is accessible.
This in incredibly important for those out there developing for the Federal government but also important for any developer of software or web applications. You never know when one of your programs or devices will be reviewed for use in this arena. You also never know when you, yourself, will be developing for this audience. So make sure to begin with Section 508 in mind.
… section 508 does not authorize complaints or lawsuits to retrofit technology procured before this date to meet the Board’s standards.
This sucks because it allows so many people out there to just ignore the fact their information is not accessible. It’s also a hindrance for those trying to convince these groups to update their technology. We may find people saying, “Well, it’s not perfect but if we were to update/redo it - we would be required to do a lot more than we really wish - We’re ok with keeping it old so we don’t have to do any work.”. This leads me to the next surprising piece.
A Federal agency does not have to comply with the technology accessibility standards if it would impose an undue burden to do so.
What !!!??? Wow, that was probably the most surprising thing to find so far. The Access Board went through all this trouble to put together this law to help people that don’t have access to electronic information and they throw this wording in there. Sure - I can understand that it may be rather costly for some groups but why not provide advantages to complying with this law? Could grants help provided a relief, what about tax benefits, etc…
The one nice thing is that you’re required to explain why there is “Undue Burden” for a given procurement action, and must still provide people with disabilities access to the information or data that is affected.
So that’s all I have time for right now but gives a lot of us a good idea of the law from a sky view. Later I’ll continue my findings and write a few articles developing for this standard. It’s not as hard as you may think.
posted on May 27, 2005| 8:22 AM EST
For those of you that don’t read the Holland Sentinel, I thought I would point out that I was in an article today entitled - City revamps Web site.
The city of Holland has revamped and redesigned its Web site in an effort to make it more user-friendly and accessible to residents.
It was nice to see the Sentinel wrote up a little something for the launching but too bad that they didn’t use anything I said in the interview.
So what did I say?
I explained how I helped the city work on their compliance with Section 508 and how we went about researching each department along with various Holland residences on what information people needed to get from the city and how often.
I explained the amazing amount of time we spent on Information Architecture and wireframing to help us think through each section of the site. I explained why we went with the design we did and the backend system integration to help them manage their own site.
The problem was Roel Garcia (the writer) hadn’t a clue to what I was talking about and hadn’t even viewed the website before calling me. A majority of his questions would have been answered by simply typing the address into his browser. Along with this came the ever so classic example of - “Most people haven’t a clue what it takes to really develop a website” and this was painfully obvious during the interview and the search for facts.
To Roel Garcia and his readers - they just think I looked at what they had for a few hours, came up with a few designs and we put the content into the design. Maybe it’s not that big of a deal but I personally would have like for people to know we did our homework and provided a strong strategy that not only provided a great website for the community but a structure/system that allows for years of growth.
The Price
The price was close but they did end up spending more money with us to help them get a little further. I should also point out what we actually did for them and say it was a great price for all they got.
The Deliverables
- Client & Audience Discovery
- Sitemaps
- Wireframes
- Content Strategies
- 3 Designs
- Coding of templates in CSS and XHTMl (compliance with Section 508)
- CMS setup
- Elevator Up Hosting
- Training
What they did was build the site out which was a handful for the technology team - primarily Doug Nibblink.
Overall, It was a great time and we had a lot of fun. The city even wrote me a little letter of recommendation.
Elevator Up made sure our website redesign and content management
implementation was a success. They helped us better understand the
importance of information architecture in the pre-design phase of our
website, which made a big difference in the end result.
Aaron and Paul really went the extra mile to make sure the site design met our needs both
now and in the future. I also appreciated Aaron’s passion for usability,
which is especially important for a government website.
City of Holland, MI
posted on May 25, 2005| 10:49 PM EST
Things have been incredibly busy on my end and posting to my site has been close to the last thing on my mind. That said, I thought I would show you all a few sites I’ve been working on and have recently launched.
Oklahoma Wesleyan University - This is my personal favorite with how well it went together. Everything about it was extremely thought through from architecture and user experience to the homepage audiences and the online application process.
WhiteHat Management - Taking the content directly from the homepage is the best way to describe what this company does - “Think of us as an engine that runs on new ideas.”. They’re an extremely fast moving company with some large ideas and new companies coming out of those ideas.
City of Holland - If you’re a local Hollander you’ve probably found yourself frustrated while trying to find some information about Holland on the city site. This is no longer an issue (for the most part). The new site is completely rethought and restructured from the ground up. More improvements are to come but it’s a great move forward for the city and the people that live in it.
So those are a few sites that have been launched this past month and another handful will be coming up here soon. I’m hoping that things will die down a bit over the next few months so I can begin working on Elevator UP 2. That’s a whole other discussion though.
So what do you think of the sites?
posted on May 23, 2005| 8:37 PM EST
