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Re: regulations on accessibility to government web sites around the world, what exists and what criteria is used to measure it

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From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Mar 31, 2011 2:21PM

Thanks you guys, that was extremely helpful.
Bevi, do you have any idea when the Section 508 draft becomes law, are
we talking months or years before it would reasonably be expected to
go through congress?
I have put together a fairly decent document with regulations from UK,
EC (European Commission), US, Australia, Canada and Denmark.
Document is in Icelandic so not exactly of much use to anyone here,
but if I do further work on it and someone is interested, let me know.
Though, honestly, much better resources exist elsewhere, like
http://www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/

and
http://www.friendsofed.com/web-accessibility/chapter17.html

Thanks
-Birkir

On 3/31/11, Bevi Chagnon | PubCom < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Birkir wrote:
> " I know of ADA Title II and section 508, but both are, unfortunately, not
> as comprehensive and clear as we would wish them to be."
>
> Did you look at the U.S. Access Board's draft of their forthcoming Section
> 508 guidelines? Much better than the current (and antiquated) standards.
> http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/refresh/draft-rule.htm
> (note the link at the top of page for a handy PDF version).
>
> If you're looking for style, presentation, and writing samples of
> guidelines, you also can view Sec. 508 guidelines written by various U.S.
> Federal govt. agencies at
> http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?fuseAction=Policies_FedAgencyLinks.
>
> Some agencies have done a better job than others. I think that the Social
> Security Administration's work is quite good and I often use their materials
> in my 508 classes for other government agencies as a sample of "best
> practices."
>
> Here's a quick summary to help you navigate our various websites and U.S.
> agencies involved in accessibility:
>
> - Congress: passed the Section 508 amendment.
> You might want to read our Federal registery entry about the official
> justification behind the forthcoming revisions here:
> http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/refresh/notice.htm . It's a very
> well-written document, especially for government bureacratese!
>
> - U.S. Access Board: is the designated regulatory agency for all
> accessibility, not just Sec. 508. It writes our regulations (called
> standards and guidelines for this topic). www.access-board.gov
>
> - Dept. of Justice handles public lawsuits about accessibility. Main
> website: http://www.justice.gov/ , Accessibility website:
> http://www.ada.gov/ .
>
> - The General Services Adminstration is tasked with educating the Federal
> workfoce about Section 508 and they, therefore, maintain the
> www.section508.gov website. Much of the information on this website is now
> out of date, so choose wisely from what's there. As I said earlier, some
> agencies do a better job than others when it comes to Section 508 guidance
> and implementation.
>
> To search all U.S. Federal websites for information, use Google Uncle Sam:
> http://www.google.com/unclesam , a spepcial Google index of just U.S.
> Federal websites and information.
>
> - Bevi Chagnon
>