Hello again,
I have blogged on this in the past, but lately a few Clients have asked about it and so I find myself revisiting my old conjoined friends: Compliance and Accessibility.
First, a few notes on each and then a direct comparison.
508 Compliance: This is in regard to section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act. I always thought it was interesting that following the basic tenets of 508 compliance is very close to doing good foundational search engine optimization. I suppose in some ways the search crawlers and bots are a bit like a site user, without sight or hearing. Does that sound insensitive? I don’t mean for it to. I am just trying to draw a metaphor; to make a site 508 compliant is to make it friendly to those with disabilities (my parents included) and search engines as well.
This is a nice quote summarizing the genesis of 508 compliance (now looking at incorporating broadband internet access as a standard!), taken from the official 508 site:
In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Inaccessible technology interferes with an individual’s ability to obtain and use information quickly and easily. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508 (29 U.S.C. ‘ 794d), agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.
Various “checkpoints” of 508 compliance involve directly leveraging the WCAG guideline – which is the W3C. A checkpoint is something like “all images need ALT tags” – which you are hopefully doing already, perhaps for SEO purposes.
508 compliance is ostensibly an “all or nothing” judgement. Either you comply, or you do not. Now, in reality (especially with SASS models and CMS systems where content is rendered dynamically) you will hear people say that they are *mostly* compliant or that they are working on being fully compliant or that at 3rd party tool will shortly be available that will ensure compliance. There seems to be a good deal of “looking the other way” going 
on. I have been on projects where 508 compliance was mandated but the software could not provide it, yet the grant had been spent and the software built, so it went live. Maybe I knew 508 better than those who were looking at it. I don’t know. There does not see to be a group of techies out there inspecting for compliance, although I have certainly heard of it. For things like blindness and screenreaders where non-compliance will be a nonsensical string of computer voice garbage, I would expect complaints.
The government is even aware of the difficulty to find a “508-ready” application, at times:
If products are commercially available that meet some but not all of the standards, the agency must procure the product that best meets the standards.
So… yeah. 508 is kinda loosey goosey in some ways.
W3C or WCAG compliance: a bit more difficult to meet in full, because “in full” has been defined as “in part” for practical purpuses. You have the option of meeting various levels of WCAG compliance. This is straightforward:
- [Priority 1]
- A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint is a basic requirement for some groups to be able to use Web documents.
- [Priority 2]
- A Web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will remove significant barriers to accessing Web documents.
- [Priority 3]
- A Web content developer may address this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it somewhat difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will improve access to Web documents.
Yes, I have seen TWO projects (out of hundreds and hundreds) delievered at the Priority 3 level (or very very close). Generally, however, since time is money money is time and people get nervous when time and money are running short, Priority 1 is generally regarded as the Must Have. This of course, depends on the specific requirement and the specific audience. As with most things, it depends. That is a recurring theme for me lately… especially with the pure Agilists. Ack.
The interesting part, to me, is the last item on the WCAG Priority 1 list and a little blurb from their statement of purpose:
11.4 If, after best efforts, you cannot create an accessible page, provide a link to an alternative page that uses W3C technologies, is accessible, has equivalent information (or functionality), and is updated as often as the inaccessible (original) page.
The government also doesn’t want to sprain anything. See their statement of purpose for 508 compliance:
…The purpose of this part is to implement section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. 794d). Section 508 requires that when Federal agencies develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology, Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency…
Let’s tell those with disabilities about undue burdens, shall we? 
- Since you will want them:
- Here is a description of 508 Compliance and
- Here is the latest description of WCAG (W3C) compliance (they are due for an overhaul, as the W3C last updated their requirements for complance about 9 years ago. A couple things have changed since then.
That is also part of the adoption problem, and why it is not something people generally lose sleep over, although I do think they should and that it is very important. - Here is a pretty neat piece of analysis by Jim Thatcher that puts each side by side, and then side by side again. Not sure how current his document is, but it is a good starting point at the very least. That is why I listed it last. I am hoping you read this and spend time here.
Any questions? Shoot me a note. We have a handy contact form for that. Have a project mandating compliance? We can help. Want to evaluate a product / service? We do that too.
Best,
Josh Milane