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.


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html