Accessibility requirements for software and Web
applications
Organizations that want to make their applications accessible to the
disabled might have to comply with several sets of slightly different
regulations and guidelines, depending on the countries in which their
products will be sold or used.
Section 508
Section 508, enacted in 1998, is an extension of the U.S.
Government’s Rehabilitation Act. Section 508 requires that all electronic
and information technology that U.S. Government agencies develop, procure,
maintain, and use must be accessible to members of the general public who
have disabilities. Many individual states in the U.S. have adopted these
requirements as well. Organizations that offer software applications for
sale to the U.S. Federal government and many state governments, as well as
companies that use or sell accessibility aids, must comply with these
regulations to ensure that their products qualify for purchase.
WCAG 1.0
The Section 508 guidelines are based on the accessibility guidelines
published in May 1999 by the World Wide Web Consortium. These are known as
the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 1.0. The WCAG 1.0
is the common basis for most accessibility guidelines and the standard for
government enforcement of regulations in many countries today. These
guidelines have three priority levels. Priority 1 deals with features
essential for access to Web content; Priority 2 defines practices that
make websites more usable and comprehensible in general, and especially to
those using accessibility tools; Priority 3 describes enhanced usability
features that make use of the newest technology.
Section 508 includes most of the Priority 1 WCAG recommendations,
several from Priorities 2 and 3, and also a few other requirements that
are not in the WCAG. The WCAG recommends that organizations strive to meet
the Priority 1 and 2 guidelines.
French legislation
The French government has also enacted legislation requiring Web
accessibility for those with disabilities and published criteria for
conformance called AccessiWeb. AccessiWeb includes three levels, Bronze,
Silver, and Gold, that correspond roughly to the three priority levels of
the WCAG, but AccessiWeb promotes many level 2 and 3 requirements to
higher levels and includes more detail than some of the WCAG
recommendations.
U.K. legislation
The United Kingdom has passed legislation called the Disability
Discrimination Act that requires websites targeting British residents to
be accessible to those with disabilities. Enforcement of the U.K. law
currently is based on the WCAG 1.0 Priority 1 and 2 guidelines.
Other countries
Many other countries have enacted legislation requiring government
or general-use websites to be accessible to the disabled. Several of these
countries explicitly require compliance with Priorities 1 and 2 of the
WCAG 1.0, but a few require only Priority 1 compliance. Many other
countries without legislated requirements use the WCAG standards in
practice.
WCAG 2.0
The WCAG standards are currently being updated with the intention
that they will become a universally accepted set of international
guidelines for Web accessibility. WCAG 2.0 will focus on general
principles that set out the characteristics websites must have to be
accessible to users with disabilities. Separate documents will spell out
the technical requirements so that these can be updated easily as
technology changes without requiring updates to the general
principles.
For more information
For information about the accessibility requirements of the U.S.
Federal Government for software applications and websites, see the Section
508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology at https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/section-508-standards
and the Guide to Section 508 Standards at https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/guide-to-the-section-508-standards.
For the generally accepted international recommendations for Web
accessibility, see the WCAG guidelines at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/.
For the new guidelines under development, see the WCAG 2.0 guidelines at
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/.
For the Web accessibility criteria adopted by the French government,
see the AccessiWeb criteria at http://www.accessiweb.org.