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Getting Started: Web Compliance Guidelines
 
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Understanding the Laws and Guidelines

The laws can be confusing and difficult to understand. The goal of accessibility guidelines is to work toward a universal website design that will meet the needs of as many students as possible. At times the laws may feel like obstacles. Keep in mind they are designed to help you create a website while addressing the accessibility problems faced by individuals who need to use assistive technology to view web pages. To be compliant and fully accessible means that your website can also be accessed by those students needing assistive media devices such as, but not limited to, screen readers and text magnifiers.

State Laws

First it’s important to understand the laws mandating accessibility that were established by the government at both the Federal and State levels. Second you need to understand that the State of California abides by and enforces compliance to certain laws even though those laws may have been originally written to apply only to Federal agencies. And finally, all California Community College’s must comply with the established guidelines.

There are two major disability rights laws mandated by the Federal government that apply to community college websites. These laws are the ADA, and the one we will be most concerned with, the Rehabilitation Act.

In the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 508 establishes requirements for electronic and information technology developed, maintained, procured, or used by the Federal government. It requires information technology to be accessible to people with disabilities, including electronic media such as the Internet. This would also apply to any form of media placed on specific web pages such as audio and video files, as well as graphic images. The term “electronic technology” encompasses anything presented on the ‘World Wide Web’ and is spelled out in detail in the Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards.

California Government Code 11135 provides protection from discrimination from any program or activity that is conducted, funded directly by, or receives any financial assistance from the State of California. Code 11135 brought into State law the protection of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which ensures accessibility to government programs. At the same time, it made Section 508 part of California Government Code.

In March of 2003, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office announced that accessibility requirements of section 508 would apply to the development, procurement, maintenance, or use of electronic or information technology by a community college district using any source of state funds.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, State and local government, public accommodations, and commercial facilities. It also applies to telecommunications.

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires services and programs of state and local governments, including public schools, to be accessible to people with disabilities. California State law requires state entities to comply with the standards. This means that schools, specifically schools receiving State financial aide, must also adhere to the ADA.

The Restrictions and Guidelines that Apply to Community College Websites The Chancellor’s Office for California Community Colleges developed “Distance Education: Access Guidelines for Students with Disabilities”10.

The guidelines require two basic things. 1) You must follow requirements established by the World Wide Web Consortium. These requirements are divided into 3 levels of priority and are referred to as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). 2) You must comply with Section 508, described earlier, specifically to requirements labeled “A” through “O” in paragraph 1194.22. For purposes of simplicity, only priority 1 W3C guidelines will be addressed. The two sets of requirements often overlap. When the requirements overlap, you will see a letter next to priority guideline. The letter indicates that when complying with that WCAG guideline, you have also met the requirement for the corresponding Section 508 requirement. The requirements listed here have been simplified and you are encouraged to read them in full for more detailed information.

Priority 1 Level Requirements (W3C)

  • Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content.


  • Provide ‘text equivalent’ for all non-text elements. This refers to any graphical representation of text. Includes: images, animated gifs, images used as bullets, applets, scripts, sounds, graphical buttons, ASCII art, and image maps. (also meets ‘A’ of Section 508)


  • Provide long descriptions for important graphics, scripts, or applets if they are not fully described through alternative text or in the document’s content.


  • Provide synchronized captioning for all time-based multimedia presentations such as movies and animations. (also meets ‘B’ of Section 508).


  • Ensure that text and graphics are perceivable and understandable when viewed without color. (also meets ‘C’ of Section 508)


  • Organize documents so they may be read without styles sheets. (also meets ‘D’ of Section 508)


  • Provide your own image maps rather than relying on server-side image maps. (also meets ‘F’ of Section 508)


  • Data tables (not used for layout) should identify rows and have column headers. (also meets ‘G’ of Section 508)

    Data Tables are tables that present information in a grid format or matrix. They contain column and/or row headers that show the meaning of the information in the grid.


  • Data tables containing 2 or more logical levels of rows or headers, should include markup to associate data cells and header cells. (also meets ‘H’ of Section 508)


  • Title each frame to facilitate frame identification and navigation. (also meets ‘I’ of section 508)


  • When displaying multimedia presentations, provide an auditory description of any important information being displayed visually until user agents can automatically begin to read the text equivalents aloud. (also meets ‘J’ of Section 508)


  • Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. (also meets ‘L’ and ‘M’ of Section 508)


  • Ensure that moving, blinking, scrolling, or auto-updating objects, or pages may be paused or frozen. (If you avoid flickering greater than 2Hz and lower than 55Hz it also meets ‘J’ of Section 508)


  • Clearly identify changes in natural language of a document’s text and text equivalents.


  • Ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes.


  • Make programmatic elements such as scripts and applets directly accessible or compatible with assistive technologies. (If when a web page requires an applet, plug-in or other application, you provide a link to the plug-in or applet this will also meet ‘M’ of Section 508)

Additional Requirements: Section 508

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. (meets ‘N’ of Section 508)

  • A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links. This is easily accomplished, see the ‘skip to Content’ link at the top of example 3 in Appendix A. (meets ‘O’ of Section 508)

  • When a timed response is required, the user shall be alerted and given sufficient time to indicate more time is required. (meets ‘P’ of Section 508)


The Distance Education: Access Guidelines for Students with Disabilities offers additional information for providing accessible material. Additionally, you can view and download the complete WAI Guidelines for Accessible Web Site Design by visiting their website at http://www.w3.org/WAI/. You will find links to Guidelines and Techniques, http://www.w3.org/WAI/guid-tech.html, as well as information regarding updates to current web accessibility issues and resources to help you create web pages.

Requirements can appear overwhelming at first. If you have an existing web site, take steps to meet more simple guidelines first. Adding alternate text is one of the least complicated improvements and will benefit many students. Start off small and work your way though your existing site, making as many improvements as you can. As you become more comfortable with accessibility issues and with making changes, you will take pride in providing web content that all students can access. Review the resources available on campus and ask for help and advice when you encounter a guideline that you do not understand.



Last Revised 10/29/2008