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RE: 508 vs. WCAG

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From: Steve Vosloo
Date: Aug 19, 2002 7:53AM

Thanks Jukka.

It seems that to achieve 508 compliance you'd go for Priority 1 plus a
few others from priority 2 and 3. Sounds very reasonable.

I'm still not sure if both are required, i.e. will a UK court accept
508, and a US court accept Priority 1 plus a few others from priority 2
and 3? But I suppose if it is so easy to achieve compliance for both
then an answer isn't needed. I'll just do it.

Steve




-----Original Message-----
From: Jukka Korpela [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: 19 August 2002 08:20 AM
To: ' <EMAIL REMOVED> '
Subject: RE: 508 vs. WCAG


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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