[thelist] Re: Accessibility laws

[the head lemur]

I wrote an article on accessibility last year for a list apart
Accessibility: the clock is ticking. This article outlined Section 508 of
the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, where it came from and what it was
supposed to accomplish.

They do not apply to personal or commercial sites. You can still build sites
anyway you want to.

These rules were to be finished by Feb. 7, and become law on August 8, 2000.

The regulations pertained to US Federal websites, which by the latest count
number over 20,000. These regulations were an outgrowth of the Americans
with Disabilities Act. The ADA requires goverment agencies to provide
services and information to all citizens in a form they can understand, such
as braille formats for the blind. The ADA also required places of Public
Accommodation to provide accessibility as well.

It is November 3, 2000 and these regulations may be buried forever.

I wrote an opinion last month on how these regulations were buried.

http://www.lemurzone.com/edit/converse30.htm

This is a snippet from the Military Construction Appropriations Act for
Fiscal Year 2001 (HR. 4425; P.L. 106-246; July 13, 2000)

SEC. 2405. Section 508(f)(1) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C.
794d(f)(1)) is amended--

(1) in subparagraph (A), by striking `Effective' and all that follows
through `1998,' and inserting `Effective 6 months after the date of
publication by the Access Board of final standards described in subsection
(a)(2),'; and

The deleted portion--(A) COMPLAINTS.--Effective 2 years after the date of
enactment of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998, any individual with
a disability may file a complaint alleging that a Federal department or
agency fails to comply with subsection (a)(1) in providing electronic and
information technology.
(2) in subparagraph (B), by striking `2 years' and all that follows and
inserting `6 months after the date of publication by the Access Board of
final standards described in subsection (a)(2).'.

The deleted portion--(B) APPLICATION.--This subsection shall apply only to
electronic and information technology that is procured by a Federal
department or agency not less than 2 years after the date of enactment of
the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998.
This legislation which is now law, effectively cuts the legs from the
Section 508 regulations regarding web site accessibility for the disabled.

Two points that come to mind immediately.

There is no end date. This will under most circumstances, allow a group to
disguise "motion as activity" by holding meetings, generate interim reports
and collect a check.

There is no accountability. There is nothing in the regulations as
originally written that would create an undue burden on the government, with
the testimony given, with the accessibility standards that were used as a
guide in 1998.

A lot of folks code for different browsers to use "features", play the
javascript browser sniffing game, building different versions of the same
site, build sites in Flash, present material in .pdf formats, and spend time
working with the W3C Standards, HTML 4.0, CSS 1, CSS 2, and the emerging
XML.

We bleed a lot when we build these things only to be hit with rendering
problems, browser incompatibilities that sacrifice Standards for "features",
and incomplete support that would enable us to build rich, compliant, and
accessible sites.

I'm not whining here, just pointing out what happens every time we attempt
anything more complicated than using 'heading' and 'p'tags.