What is Section 508?
Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act prohibits federal agencies from buying, developing, maintaining, or using electronic and information technology that is inaccessible to people with disabilities. Although Section 508 came about more than 14 years ago, little progress was made until 1998, when Congress passed the Workforce Investment Act, amending the law to give members of the public and government employees with disabilities the right to sue agencies in federal court and file administrative complaints for noncompliance. The transition of Federal funded websites to meet the guidelines has been slow. An initial deadline of full compliance of Federal funded websites with Section 508 was June 21, 2001. These were basically any website that ended with a .gov extension.

Section 508 specifies the criteria for web-based technology and information based on access guidelines developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the W3C. Helpful information with specifics of the guidelines can be found at: http://www.section508.gov/.

Many of these requirements ensure access for people with vision impairments who rely on various assistive products (such as screen readers, which translate the contents of a computer screen into automated audible output and refreshable Braille displays) to access computer-based information. Certain conventions, such as verbal tags or graphic identification and format devices like frames, are necessary so that these devices can “read” them for the user in a sensible way.

Why is Section 508 Important?
Federal Funding – Agencies/associations that apply for Federal Funding are graded on their compliance to the Section 508 Guidelines. If the Agencies/Associations are not meeting and/or showing an attempt to meet Section 508 Guidelines, they could possibly be risking Federal Funding for some organizations.

Testing/verifying your Section 508 Compliance
As a developer or a client, you need to check and ensure that any changes made to your site to become 508 compliant are translated correctly through the readers. Developers can make changes to the code and the layout according to the 508 standards, but was the change effective?

A great resource for verifying that your site has become Section 508 compliant can be found at your local Libraries. Libraries have access to Assisted Listening Devises that you can utilize to test your website.

Check with you local public or academic library. Test the site using the readers that are available to ensure compliancy. If you are spending the time to make your site 508 compliant, ensure that it is by performing the testing. This may take a little extra time, but will be worth it.

Work with a company that is versed in Section 508 guidelines and can provide assistance in upgrading your site to meet the guidelines.