Day 87: Guidelines, Laws, and Myths

Published on 25 Feb 2019

• journal
• resources
• review
• was
• aria
• atag
• law
• myths
• specifications
• wcag

My intention today was to complete the first Deque course within the WAS certification prep program. I did do that, but not without being led to more resources that I need to read through. I've done a little research into US laws, but I need to read them again, plus read other laws mentioned in what I reviewed today. Looks like tomorrow's study session is laid out for me.

Completed guidelines, laws, and myths sections of Deque's Accessibility Fundamentals.

Principles, guidelines, and authoring practices help create an accessible interaction between user and website or application. These guidelines and practices ensure that a variety of disabilities are taken into consideration.

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): principles, guidelines, and success criteria to make websites accessible to many different disabilities
• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG): principles and guidelines to make content management systems, WYSIWYG text editors, and other web author tools accessible to authors, as well as outputted code
• Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA): additional HTML and practices to make web applications more accessible to screen reader users that are blind or have low vision

I covered these more in detail on my own, which I've journalled on this site, but Deque does a decent job of getting the learner started with the basic principles and guidelines, and points them to official specifications. I'll admit, I need to go back and spend some serious review time to go over all these.

Web accessibility laws usually fit into one of the following eleventyNavigation:
parent: "WAS"
title: "Day "
tags:

• civil rights: discrimination against disabilities (Americans with Disabilities Act)
• procurement: purchasing accessible IT products (Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act)
• industry-specific: regulations for private industries (21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, Air Carrier Access Act)

• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
• Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
• 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA)
• Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA)

• Web Standards for the Government of Canada
• Ontario: The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)
• Quebec: Standards sur l'accessibilité du Web

• European Union: EN 301 549 "Accessibility requirements suitable for public procurement of ICT products and services in Europe"
• United Kingdom: Equality Act of 2010
• France: Référentiel Général d'Accessibilité pour les Administrations (RGAA) (Translated: General Accessibility Repository for Administrations)
• Germany: Barrierefreie-Informationstechnik-Verordnung (BITV 2) (Translated: Accessible Information Technology Regulation)
• Ireland: Code of Practice on Accessibility of Public Services and Information provided by Public Bodies
• Italy: Law 4/2004 ("Stanca" Law)
• Netherlands: Netherlands: Web Accessibility Laws and Policies
• Spain: Law 34/2002, Law 51/2003

• Australia: Disability Discrimination Act
• Hong Kong: Guidelines on Dissemination of Information through Government Websites [PDF] (WCAG, Level AA)
• India: Indian Web Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG, Level AA)
• Japan: Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) X 8341, Act on the Elimination of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities
• New Zealand: Human Rights Amendment Act 2001, Web Accessibility Standard 1.0, Web Usability Standard 1.2

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) has a comprehensive list of international accessibility policies. Additionally, PowerMapper has a list of government accessibility standards.

1. It benefits only a small minority. Truth: It actually benefits everyone.
2. It's a short-term project. Truth: It's on-going.
3. It should be the last step. Truth: It needs to start at the beginning of the project and last throughout the project's life cycle.
4. It's hard & expensive. Truth: Remediation is harder and more expensive than considering it throughout the life cycle.
5. It's ugly. Truth: Most accessibility features are not visible to everyone.