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Re: WCAG 2.0 vs. Section 508

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From: Christophe Strobbe
Date: Aug 11, 2009 2:15AM

Hi David,

At 02:02 11/08/2009, David Ashleydale wrote:
>Hi,
>
>My company has been working towards complying with the WCAG 1.0
>accessibility guidelines and recently we've decided to "upgrade" to WCAG
>2.0. Since we're touching our standards anyway, I thought this might be a
>good opportunity for us to throw in the ADA Section 508 guidelines, too. I
>realize that there is a lot of overlap between the two standards, but I
>thought it might be valuable to pick up the Section 508 items that are not
>in WCAG 2.0.
>
>My first question is, do you think this would be valuable, or do you think
>it's sufficient to just use WCAG 2.0 and not bother with Section 508?

While planning this kind of work it is important to bear in mind that
the current Section 508 was based on a draft of WCAG 1.0, and that
during the development of WCAG 2.0 there has been harmonisation work
between the WCAG Working Group and the committee that prepared the
update of Section 508 (i.e. the technical work, not the political
work). Based on what I've heard (nothing official), there won't be a
"new Section 508" within the next 12-18 months, but WCAG 2.0 appears
to be a stabler option right now.

Best regards,

Christophe


--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
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BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/
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