Web Accessibility Update

The comment period recently closed on the U.S. Access Board’s 508 Refresh proposal that updates Section 508.  Though Section 508 and the 508 Refresh technically apply only to federal agencies, the Justice Department has for many years applied Section 508 web accessibility standards when dealing with other entities.  Section 508 applied part of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 1.0 to Web accessibility. The 508 Refresh incorporates by reference most of WCAG version 2.0 at the AA level of conformance.

The Refresh encompasses more than just Web accessibility and many of the comments dealt with the other issues in it. A few commenters, however, suggested that WCAG 2.0’s criterion for resizing text was insufficient to provide accessibility to low vision users. 

The Justice Department has a pending Notice of Proposed Rulemaking applicable to state and local governments that is likely to adopt WCAG 2.0 AA.  Some AALL member institutions have already adopted WCAG 2.0 AA as policy and at least one has adopted it as policy at the A conformance level (a lower level of conformance than AA).