Usability Guidelines

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508 Standards

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"508 standards" refers to section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998. The original act (1973) was designed to set up rules allowing for federal employees with disabilities fair access to facilities and information. Section 508 refers directly to information systems, allowing that the disabled employees "have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access to and use of information and data by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities." Recently, with input from the IT industry, final rules have been made referring to electronic and information technology, outlined in §1194. The subsection that has the most effect on web design is §1194.22, titled "Web-based intranet and internet information and applications."

Why is this important to us at Matrix? First, because most of our work here is paid for by government grants, one of the stipulations of the grant is that the developed site adheres to section 508 standards. Second, as an educational research site, it is important to the concept of Matrix's work that our productions be equally accessible to all people, disabled or not.

Below is §1194.22 with some interpretive notes. (read the full text of the Final Rule)

§1194.22 Web-based intranet and internet information and applications

1. A text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content).

   Essentially, all images and non-text items on the page that have informational content to a non-disabled person (such as navigation or an image file that contains some kind of content like a corporate slogan or tagline) must have a text descriptor via the alt or longdesc properties. This rule still applies to elements that serve a purely aesthetic or design function, such as spacer images. In these cases, the alt tag should read ALT="" to indicate that there is no information contained.

2. Equivalent alternatives for any multimedia presentation shall be sychronized with the presentation.

   This rule requires the use of synchronized transcripting like what we use on michigan-writers.org

3. Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.
4. Documents shall be organized so they are readable wihout requiring an associated style sheet.

   Unless your design involves a lot of CSS and absolute positioning to make it understandable, you should have no trouble making a page that fits this criteria.

5. Redundant text links shall be provided for each active region of a server-side image map.

   This requires, essentially, a list of text navigation links. Normally we put these in the footer as part of standard footers.

6. Client-side image maps shall be provided instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape.
7. Row and column headers shall be indentified for data tables.

   This is important. Any tables where data is presented, such as in chart form, must use the <TH> tag to define the column and row headers. It is a lesser known tag from the early days of HTML, but it is still supported, and allows for accessibilty software to treat the header cells differently than the data cells. This rule does not apply for non-data (layout) tables.

8. Markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers.
9. Frames shall be titled with text that facilitates frame identification and navigation
10. Pages shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz
11. A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a web site comply with the provisions of this part, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes.
12. When pages utilize scripting languages to display content, or to create interface elements, the information provided by the script shall be identified with functional text that can be read by assistive technology.

    This applies to rollovers, for instance. Any rollovers used in a design that provide information should include the functional text in a manner readable by accessibility software.

13. When a web page requires that an applet, plug-in, or other application be present on the client system to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to a plug-in or applet that complies with §1194.21(a) through (l).

    The section in question is the rules for software applications and operating systems. (read the full text)

14. When electronic forms are designed to be completed on-line, the form shall allow people using assistive technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required for completion and submission of the form, including all directions and cues.
15. A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.

This is most often achieved by the placing of either an invisible 1x1 pixel image or invisible text in the top of the page before the markup relating to navigation. This text or image is set to link to an anchor placed right before the content of the page. You can find an example of this on every page in this website.

16. When a timed response is required, the user shall be alerted and given sufficient time to indicate more time is required.