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Re: Section 508 VPAT question

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From: Jonathan Avila
Date: May 4, 2021 10:37AM

Essentially 502 and 503 do not apply to websites as long as they are WCAG conformant. The rub is that if they are not conformant then it could be read that they do apply - in practice people do not report on these for websites when they don't apply. One seemly accidental omission is that 503.4.x was meant to apply to website as it covers captions/audio description controls - but that is often implicitly covered by WCAG unless open captions/integrated AD are provided.

Jonathan

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From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Steve Green
Sent: Tuesday, May 4, 2021 11:15 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] Section 508 VPAT question

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A client has asked us to create a VPAT for their website using the International Edition template i.e. the one that incorporates WCAG, Section 508 and EN 301 549.

The WCAG and EN 301 549 parts are straightforward, but I can't work out if the 502 and 503 criteria apply in Section 508. https://www.access-board.gov/ict/#501-general says "Where Web applications do not have access to platform accessibility services and do not include components that have access to platform accessibility services, they shall not be required to conform to 502 or 503 provided that they conform to Level A and Level AA Success Criteria and Conformance Requirements in WCAG 2.0".

I think 502 and 503 probably apply, but some of them are incomprehensible (to me), such as "Platform software shall provide user control over platform features that are defined in the platform documentation as accessibility features". What on earth does that mean? Does it even apply to a website?

Can anyone help me understand this?

Regards,
Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd
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