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Re: Survey Monkey

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From: Jared Smith
Date: Feb 29, 2008 9:30AM

On 2/29/08, Robert Erichsen < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Survey Monkey has a notice on their website stating that they are now
> compliant with Section 508 standards. Has anyone tested this?

A few thoughts:

- When a company has a statement about the accessibility of a product,
you have to be a bit skeptical. I'd venture a guess that the majority
of products that claim 508 compliance are not.

- Section 508 compliance does not mean accessible. In regards to
surveys, there really is only one or two checkpoints in Section 508
that would apply.

With that said, I did some testing a while back and found Survey Gizmo
to be the most accessible.

Of note is the fact that Survey Monkey's survey and admin interface
are 100% inaccessible to keyboard users - a violation of no less that
3 Section 508 checkpoints. Their accessibility implementation is for
screen reader users only and this is accomplished by providing a
'hidden' link that will allow screen reader users to access an
accessible alternative to their normal, inaccessible surveys -
http://www.surveymonkey.com/HelpCenter/Answer.aspx?HelpID=247
While this is subject to interpretation, the fact they are providing a
text-only alternative to something that could be made accessible is a
direct violation of yet another 508 checkpoint - letter K.

I don't want to bash on Survey Monkey alone - I've yet to find any
mainstream survey tool that is very accessible. But at a minimum,
unless I'm missing something, Survey Monkey's claim to 508 compliance
and the methods the NFB gave them for becoming 'compliant' are flat
out wrong.

Jared Smith
WebAIM