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Re: Government site accessibility law

for

From: Nancy Johnson
Date: Sep 22, 2010 5:24AM

If its a US Government site, I might suggest letting them know that
you could not access the site with some details as to what you were
trying to do.

Nancy

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 8:17 PM, Karl Groves
< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Randi -
>
> As point of clarification: all US Government agencies within the Executive
> Branch are required to comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.
> There are several exemptions to Section 508, none of which are likely to be
> applicable to a public facing website.  In short, yes, government websites
> are supposed to be accessible.
>
> The technical and functional provisions of Section 508 (those found under
> Subpart B and Subpart C) are - purposely - agnostic when it comes to things
> like user agents and assistive technologies.  In fact, if you read through
> the Functional Performance Criteria (1194.31) you see non-specific
> references to assistive technologies. For example, 1194.31(a) says "At least
> one mode of operation and information retrieval that does not require user
> vision shall be provided, or support for assistive technology used by people
> who are blind or visually impaired shall be provided." This provision
> doesn't discuss screen readers, Braille output, or screen magnification,
> much less a brand.  It simply says "assistive technology used by people who
> are blind or visually impaired".
>
> The words "browser" or "user-agent" do not appear at all in the standards.
> So, to make a long story short, there's nothing in Section 508 mandating
> cross-browser compatibility.
>
>
> Karl
>
>
>