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RE: 508 vs. WCAG

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From: Jukka Korpela
Date: Aug 18, 2002 11:23PM

Jim Thatcher wrote:

> Maybe my Side-By-Side comparison of Section 508 and
> WCAG Priority 1 will help you:
> http://jimthatcher.com/sidebyside.htm.

It's a very informative comparison. But would it be possible to include
there, or put somewhere, a compact list of main differences? As far as I can
see (and I started studying 508 rather recently), they are:

Rules in WCAG 1.0 but not in Section 508:
- WCAG checkpoint 1.3 (auditory description of visual track in multimedia)
- WCAG checkpoint 4.1 (identify changes in natural language)
- WCAG checkpoint 6.2 (ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are
updated)
- WCAG checkpoint 14.1 (use the clearest and simplest language appropriate
for the site's content)

Rules in Section 508 but not in WCAG 1.0:
- Section 508 rule (p) (when a timed response is required, the user shall be
alerted and given sufficient time to indicate more time is required).

Section 508 rule (n), related to forms, corresponds to a set of WCAG 1.0
checkpoints which are however priority 2.

There are also items where either WCAG 1.0 or Section 508 is more
restrictive, as well as differences in formulations. Perhaps the most
essential is that Section 508 (o) specifically requires that a method be
provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links; WCAG has a
more vague checkpoint, with priority 3.

The conclusion is that if you can satisfy WCAG 1.0 priority 1 requirements,
it doesn't probably take much to comply with Section 508 too, though you
have a a few things to check out. In the opposite direction, in addition to
the other issues, you would need to add some lang attributes to comply with
checkpoint 6.2, and this might take quite some work, and nobody who reads
guideline 14.1 as written can ever honestly claim conformance to it. (And it
still wouldn't be good enough if you could, by miracle, comply with it; for
the guideline itself requires too much and too little at the same time -
surely all content should be presented as simply as possible for the content
itself, not for some "site" as a whole.)

--
Jukka Korpela, senior adviser
TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Centre
http://www.tieke.fi
Phone: +358 9 4763 0397 Fax: +358 9 4763 0399



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