Webstandards, Accessibility and Usability at Penn State

Penn State Policy AD-54 and Section 508

Seminar Page 4

The most current information on Penn State Accessibility policy is available from Access P.S.U.

The Penn State Policy AD-54 "Web Page Design and Image" has been revised to require accessibility accommodations in Penn State Web sites matching this Section 508 guidelines (New Window) mandated for federal government Web sites.

AD-54 Policy and Accessibility

To quote from policy AD-54:

• Web Markup Standards: Site administrators should integrate W3C and Section 508 standards into site planning and design.
  
• Accessibility: The University's policy is to be compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998.
  
  • New Web pages and sites should comply, to the extent possible allowed by current technology, with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998, the Web-based intranet and Internet information and applications (1194.22) http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=content&ID=12. Current pages and sites should be evaluated and developers should implement a timely program to address major flaws, using current best practices and professional judgment.

References to Section 508 Guidelines will be mentioned when relevant to discussing different HTML tags and tools.

NOTE: The LIFT Dreamweaver plug-in available from the Penn State Computer Store can check a Web site in terms of compliance with Section 508.

WCAG Guidelines and Other Guidelines

Although Penn State has elected to require compliance with Section 508 guidelines for official Penn State Web pages, you should be aware that other guidelines have been developed, some with more or different provisions.

WCAG

The other major guideline cited by usability experts is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ( WCAG) which is now being upgraded to WCAG 2 to include options for Web 2.0 applications and upgraded guidelines. The revised version of Section 508 (also pending) may parallel WCAG 2.0 guidelines more.

The guidelines for both WCAG 1 and WCAG 2 are divided into three priority levels, with Level 1 being the most critical guidelines and Level 3 the least critical.

WAI-ARIA

Another standard is WAI-ARIA which is a set of guidelines just for dynamic Web pages and Web applications. The very latest browsers (Firedox 3, Internet Explorer 8, Safari 4) can now recognize WAI-ARIA tags.

Other Guidelines

In addition, many countries are implementing their own national guidelines. If your Web site is housed in or substantially interacting with a particular nation, you may want to check their guidelines in addition to Section 508 guidelines.

Finally, individual colleges, departments or units may require additional accessibility guidelines.

Other Penn State Web Site Requirements

See the Penn State Web Style Guide for details on other Web Page guidelines such as logo placement, specifying contact information and implementing a standard Search function.

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