Below is an article that appeared Friday about the upcoming release of
web accessibility guidelines by the Access Board. It should be noted that
the Clinton Administration flunked its own its own standards. The author
ran www.whitehouse.gov through the Bobby validation tool and discovered a
number of errors. Bobby is programmed to detect many of the accessibility
problems found in many web pages. How realistic is it to expect private
business to rapidly and without compromise meet all the standards when the
President does not comply with them?
kelly
URL: http://www.freedomforum.org/technology/1999/4/30handicapaccess.asp
New U.S. law requires Web sites to become 'handicapped accessible'
By Adam Clayton Powell III
World Center
4.30.99
Webmasters, Uncle Sam wants you to change your Web site to make it
more accessible to those who are blind, deaf and otherwise disabled.
And for some, it's not a suggestion: it's the law.
The new rules are mandated by a little-known provision, Section 508 of
the Workforce Investment Act enacted by Congress last year.
The new rules will apply within a few months to all Web sites operated
by government agencies and by anyone who does any business with the
federal government - and possibly soon afterward to every Web site
posted in the U.S., the government announced.
Members of the federal Web site commission told ZDNet yesterday that
for non-government-related sites in the U.S., the guidelines would be
voluntary, but those who do not adopt them could soon face new federal
rules for all online publishing.
Under the new law, Web sites will be required to restructure their
content, design and underlying technologies to allow "individuals with
disabilities who are members of the public seeking information or
services from a Federal department or agency to have access to and use
of information and data that is comparable to the access to and use of
the information and data by such members of the public who are not
individuals with disabilities."
Exactly what that means will be spelled out by the government next
month, when the commission established by the U.S. Architectural and
Transportation Barriers Compliance Board publishes the new rules for
online publishing. Provisions are expected to include a ban on any
audio without simultaneous text and restrictions on animated graphics.
One preview of what the barrier board may publish next month is
contained in its own notices, which state that, in addition to
conventional html and pdf versions available online, all online
information must also be available from the agency via audio text and
TTY, as well as "cassette tape, Braille, large print, or computer
disk."
The federal guidelines follow publication in the Federal Register last
summer of the barrier board's intention to develop the new rules. And
in September, the board announced that a new federal committee had
been appointed to help draft the new requirements and that the
committee would begin meeting the following month.
Most of the committee members were representatives of people with
disabilities, including such groups as the American Council of the
Blind, the American Foundation for the Blind, Easter Seals, the
National Association of the Deaf, the National Federation of the Blind
and United Cerebral Palsy Association. Also included were three
members from the computer industry, representing IBM, Microsoft and
NCR.
The announcement also disclosed that the barrier board would draft the
guidelines with a "less formal, but certainly no less important, ad
hoc committee," whose members were not disclosed.
Members of the committee asserted that the federal government has
power to regulate the form and content of online information - as
opposed to print, where the government does not have such power -
because the federal government paid for the development of the
Internet.
"The Internet is subject to market forces, but it didn't start through
market forces, it was started by the federal government," said Jenifer
Simpson, a committee member and manager of technology initiatives at
the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities,
in an interview with Ziff Davis. Simpson added that the rights of the
disabled must prevail over other considerations.
"This is really a civil rights issue," she said.
And if online publishers decline to adopt the committee's new
guidelines voluntarily, the guidelines could become mandatory under
federal law for all Web sites, according to Simpson and to Judy
Brewer, another committee member who is also director of the Web
Access Initiative.
The new law applies to a broad range of Web, Internet and electronic
storage, transmission and retrieval hardware and software
technologies, specifically "any equipment or interconnected system or
subsystem of equipment, that is used in the automatic acquisition,
storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display,
switching, interchange, transmission, or reception of data or
information."
U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, in her memorandum on the new law,
included in the definition of covered technologies "computers (such as
hardware, software, and accessible data such as web pages), facsimile
machines, copiers, telephones, and other equipment used for
transmitting, receiving, using, or storing information."
The attorney general also announced the creation of a federal Web
site, www.508.org, accessible only from government computers, to help
Webmasters ascertain whether they are in compliance with the new law.
From outside of a .gov or .mil domain, users were today greeted by a
403 error code, reading "Forbidden. You don't have permission to
access / on this server."
Last month, the WAI published its own set of proposed guidelines that
could be adopted into federal law.
The first guideline requires Web sites to supply text alternatives for
all images and graphics.
"Thus, a text equivalent for an image of an upward arrow that links to
a table of contents could be 'Go to table of contents'," the provision
reads.
A second provision bars the use of color to convey information,
because "people who cannot differentiate between certain colors and
users with devices that have non-color or non-visual displays will not
receive the information."
Other requirements prescribe punctuation and prohibit using multiple
languages on the same page, because that can hinder translation by
Braille readers, discourage the "use (or misuse)" of tables and other
formatting that "makes it difficult for users with specialized
software to understand the organization of the page or to navigate
through it."
Another provision requires Webmasters to "ensure that moving,
blinking, scrolling, or auto-updating objects or pages may be paused
or stopped" and to design all pages so they can be operated without a
mouse or other pointing device.
"Interaction with a document must not depend on a particular input
device such as a mouse," reads the start of this provision.
Another Web site lets online publishers test their sites using some of
the suggested guidelines that soon may have the force of federal law
behind them. The Center for Applied Special Technology has posted free
software it calls Bobby, illustrated with an image of a jovial waving
policeman. That cheerful logo doubles as a seal of approval that can
be downloaded and used by Web sites that meet Bobby's accessibility
guidelines.
Bobby flunked a number of widely used Web sites, including the White
House, where the software identified "13 accessibility problems that
should be fixed in order to make this page accessible to people with
disabilities." The software also identified additional "accessibility
questions" regarding which the Webmaster should "check each item
carefully."
Unless those problems were fixed, warned the software message, the
White House Web site "will not be approved by Bobby."
Bobby may be waving with his right hand, but in his left hand, not
visible in the logo, may be a billy club - Section 508.
So, White House, be forewarned: Starting next year, any individual
anywhere in the U.S. will be able bring suit under Section 508 against
offending Web sites operated by a government agency or by anyone who
does business with the government.
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