STC Usability SIG Newsletter
Usability Interface

Intranet Accessibility and Section 

by Kathy Bine

A compelling reason to make your Intranet accessible to people with disabilities is because it’s the law. Section 508 of the United States’ Rehabilitation Act of 1972 requires that Federal agencies’ electronic and information technology (EIT) be accessible to people with disabilities (vision, hearing, mobility) if the EIT is procured on or after June 21, 2001. It establishes penalties for Federal departments and agencies that fail to make their EIT accessible. EIT includes the following:

Software applications and operating systems

• Web-based information or applications
• Telecommunications functions
• Video or multi-media products
• Self-contained, closed products such as information kiosks and transaction machines
• Computers

If you develop hardware, software, Internet, or Intranet solutions for the U.S. Government, either as an employee of the U.S. Government or as a service or product provider, the procurement date is a critical factor in determining functional requirements of your Intranet.

If you work for a government other than the U.S. Government, keep reading, and bear in mind that nations including Germany and Canada are considering standards similar to Section 508.

The content you create for that Intranet should be readable by the software and hardware that a person with disabilities uses to access your site. Your Intranet doesn’t have to provide the hardware and software to people with disabilities—just provide it in an accessible format. Accessible formats include ASCII text and HTML. Some technologies, such as videoconferencing, Macromedia Flash, JavaScript, and Java applets, are not accessible formats. If you choose to use these formats, read up on the issues and see what accommodation you can make for people with vision or hearing disabilities.

If you work for a nonprofit or a for-profit business, things get trickier. Your corporate Intranet serves a captive audience, not the U.S. taxpayer. Your manager may say, "We don’t have anyone on staff who has disabilities." Your response? "That could change tomorrow." A car accident can change your life in seconds. Glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetes, and even benign tumors slowly steal sight or hearing, and may result in blindness or deafness. Your company may hire someone who has a disability.

The Intranet is a great place to build qualifications to do accessibility work. Once your developers implement your accessible Intranet, they will have the knowledge to make your public Web site accessible. E-commerce business managers should support changes to assist the regular Web shopper, such as a person with disabilities who may not have the option to go out shopping.

Ensure that evaluations for usability also evaluate accessibility. The objectives of Section 508 are similar to those for the Americans with Disabilities Act: by making your Intranet accessible for some, you make it more usable for everyone. What else can you do to get people to make your Intranet accessible?

• Conduct a demonstration of assistive technologies.
• Ask a developer to build a web site or database about Section 508 to combine a task they love with a new subject area, and new functional requirements.
• Delegate the technical knowledge tasks whenever possible. It's ok to own the objective but not all of the knowledge to achieve it.
• Pick one technical area in which you can be the Section 508 expert, such as Adobe Acrobat or cascading style sheets, and share your knowledge. If you establish some credentials, the developers are more likely to respect your knowledge about accessibility because you’ve had to implement it. l

References

U.S. Government Services Administration's Center for IT Accommodation (CITA) Web site at www.Section508.gov

Voluntary Product Accessibility Template at www.itic.org/policy/vpat.html#softwaredetails

World Wide Web Coalition's Web Accessibility Initiative Web site at http://www.w3c.org/WAI/, which provides accessibility guidelines and checklists specifically for a Web-based solution.

U.S. Department of Justice Section 508 enforcement Web site at www.usdoj.gov/crt/508/508home.html