Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Standards Variations and Section 508

Various other countries have their own versions of web accessibility standards, most of which are derived from WCAG 1.0. Canada, Australia, the U.K., and Europe, for example, have accessibility standards that generally agree with the most important points (Priority 1 and Priority 2) of WCAG 1.0. One of the most well-known standards that is a deviation from this is Section 508 in the U.S., which uses Priority 1 checkpoints, as well as a few other selectively chosen checkpoints.

Many view Section 508 as a more literal and strict interpretation of the Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints. Fundamentally, though, Section 508 principles are generally consistent with Priority 1 of WCAG 1.0, though the wording may be slightly different.

The following list is excerpted from subsection 1194.22 of Section 508 standards for Web-based intranet and Internet information and applications (http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12#Web). You’ll notice that the items (a) through (k) consistently map to the Priority 1 checkpoints of WCAG 1.0, whereas the subsequent items do not.

• (a) A text equivalent for every nontext element shall be provided (e.g., via alt, longdesc, or in element content).

• (b) Equivalent alternatives for any multimedia presentation shall be synchronized with the presentation.

• (c) Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example, from context or markup.

• (d) Documents shall ...