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Re: Section 508 Testing/Section 508 Refresh

for

From: Pollard, Larry W. (DRS)
Date: Jun 6, 2011 2:33PM

Good Afternoon Courtney I hope the following give you a better
understanding. This is what we run as far as accessibility testing.

http://www.vadsa.org/scorecard/

The WAI / Scorecard assessment is an annual report that is run by the
Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services for all state agencies.
The purpose of the report is to give each agency a detailed report on
how accessible their site is to people with disabilities such as vision
impaired consumers. For example, if you are blind, you might use an
automated screen reader. The screen reader, a software program, not only
reads aloud the body text on a page, but also describes Web elements
such as images. However, in order for a screen reader to describe images
and other Web elements to the user, the HTML or other markup language
used to code the page must make this information available to the screen
reader. This site was developed in order to provide statistical analysis
for accessibility (WCAG 1 / Section 508) and detailed reporting for all
commonwealth executive branch agency web sites. This site assesses
compliance with the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content and
Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Level A and Federal Section 508 web
standards. Compliancy is rated through a series of in-depth site
reports. All site reports were created using ACCVerify by HiSoftware.
The settings used in ACCVerify combine the requirements for WCAG
Priority 1 along with suggestions for potential issues with priorities 2
and 3. In addition, Section 508 components are added in order to
consolidate all tests into one report. To review a detailed side-by-side
analysis of WCAG 1.0 and Section 508 standards, please visit
http://www.jimthatcher.com/sidebyside.htm#WCAGView .
Accessibility today has two meanings for Web content:
Information is accessible when it meets U.S. federal regulations for Web
content. As of June 25, 2001, federally maintained Web sites and
networks are required to comply with these accessibility standards
Information is also accessible when it achieves the highest level of
usability. In addition to federal regulations, there are many more
suggestions that help everyone to find and use Web-based information.
For additional information, contact the W3C(r) or visit
http://www.w3.org/WAI
















Larry. Pollard
Accessibility Webmaster
Department of Rehabilitative Services