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Re: AA? standard

for

From: Moore, Michael
Date: Feb 3, 2009 7:45AM

<gary>
Hi. I carry out some work for a pretty high profile public body and
wondered
if someone can clarify what accessibility standard (as defined by law)
public bodies should be working to and whether the use of Click Here is
contrary to that standard.
</gary>


<mike>
That's kind of a difficult question to answer because it depends on your
location and the type of entity that you are.

For example, I work for a Texas State Agency and by law we are required
to meet the accessibility requirements that are set in Texas State law.
These are based on Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act. We
also have an additional obligation to meet the federal 508 standards
since we receive funds from the Federal Government. Finally because we
are an employer and a public agency we have obligations to provide
reasonable accommodation in the workplace and public access through
Title 1 and Title 2 of the ADA. However there are no specific
accessibility standards or guidelines for electronic information and
resources spelled out in the ADA.

Federal Agencies, with the exception of DOD are required to meet the
requirements of Section 508 and to purchase compliant goods and services
when they are available in the market place. If you are a private
company selling or providing IR related goods or services to Federal or
State governments you should check the purchase contract to determine
requirements for compliance.

Many non-US governments have their own laws and regulations surrounding
web and other forms of EIR accessibility. Most of these that I know of
are based upon the W3C WCAG Standards.

Finally US companies that provide goods and services over the internet
are beginning to assume some risk under the ADA. The Target case is one
good example. There is a very good discussion of this issue on Jim
Thatcher's web site http://jimthatcher.com/law-target.htm.

My personal recommendation for folks in the US is to at a minimum meet
the requirements of Section 508. Better would be to meet the WCAG 2.0
standards, which when properly applied tend to close some loopholes that
exist in 508. If your product, web site or web application works well
with assistive technologies, and you do not present barriers to people
who are deaf, hard of hearing or physically impaired then you have much
lower risk of facing litigation over accessibility. Compliance with
either 508 or WCAG would demonstrate that you were providing
reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities. But of course I
am not a lawyer so this is just my personal opinion.

Mike
</mike>


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Gary
Williamson
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 7:42 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] AA? standard




thanks



Gary