Cleveland State UniversitySkip Navigation  |  CSU Home  |  A-Z Index  |  Contact CSU  |  Search
The University Center for Teaching and Learning at Cleveland State

Getting Started with Web Accessibility and Section 508

This document is based on live presentations created during Fall semester, 2002, Spring semester, 2003, Fall semester 2003, and Spring semester 2004 by Dr. Wm. Beasley, Director of the University Center for Teaching Excellence, Ms. Moana Jarvis, Online Course & Materials Developer for Center for E-Learning and Ms. Tina Vance, former Web Specialist for the University Center for Teaching and Learning at CSU. Contact info for Dr. Beasley and Ms. Jarvis is located at the end of this document.

Topics to Cover

Why is this happening now at CSU?

The Federal regulations involved here have actually been in effect since the middle of 2001, although many educational institutions have been slow in complying with them. In Spring semester 2002, Maria Codinach (CSU affirmative action director) and Mike Zuccaro (director of CSU's disability office) approached the UCTL and IS&T. Their concern was that students with disabilities at CSU were unable to fully access content on CSU's web pages, including some instructional web pages with information required for class participation.

The UCTL and personnel from IS&T spent much of Spring and all of Summer 2002 gathering information, creating materials, and planning training and assistance in this area. The result is a multi-year process which begins here.

↑ back to top

What is Web accessibility?

You probably know that the World Wide Web has no president, CEO, or prime minister -- that it functions more as a benevolent anarchy than a corporation or government. However, it does have an identifiable inventor (Tim Berners-Lee) and an committee charged with overseeing its standards for operation (the World Wide Web Consortium, known as W3C).

Both are on record as clearly declaring that the Web is not intended solely for that portion of the population with no impairments or disabilities. Here is the W3C's definition of accessibility: "The art of ensuring that, to as large an extent as possible, facilities (such as, for example, Web access) are available to people whether or not they have impairments of one sort or another " And here is Tim Berners-Lee on the topic: "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect."

One sometimes encounters the misconception that the Web, by its very "point and click", heavily graphic nature is fundamentally incompatible with accessibility for individuals with disabilities or impairments. Clearly, the Web's creator and overseers do not share this perception.

An organization which exists to advocate and support efforts toward Web Accessibility is WebAIM (an acronym for Web Accessibility in Mind). They provide a good introduction to the topic on their "Intro to Web Accessibility" web page at: http://www.webaim.org/intro/, which I recommend to you as an excellent starting point for understanding this topic.

↑ back to top

What types of disabilities affect Internet usage?

When I first encountered this topic, I made the same assumption that many people make: that we were essentially talking about blind users of the Internet. There are actually five different categories of disability or impairment which create barriers to Web access.

Visual impairments - Blindness, Low vision, Color-blindness
This category includes individuals ranging from the totally blind, through those whose vision requires high levels of magnification, to those who are simply unable to see certain colors in a differentiated fashion.
Hearing impairments - Deafness, Deaf-blindness
Obviously, poor hearing or its total absence is the common thread here.
Mobility Impairments - Broad range of impairments some of which effect Internet usage
Disabilities in this category range from palsy to quadriplegia. Many individuals in this group use adaptive hardware; what most have in common is an inability to use a mouse.
Cognitive impairments - Many types like reading disorders & learning disabilities
These individuals are more difficult to describe as a group. One commonality is a predisposition to user disorientation - that is, they are easily lost or confused by poorly organized Web pages.
Seizure disorders - Caused by Web pages that flicker at a rate that is likely to cause seizures
Also known as "photoepilepsy". These individuals are highly vulnerable to blinking and scrolling Web page content.

↑ back to top

How are web pages adapted for these disabilities?

Here's a short list of some of the most common adaptations.

Visual impairments:

  • Ensure compatibility with text reader software (e.g. JAWS)
  • Make pages fully navigable with keyboard commands in addition to mouse
  • Include "skip navigation" features in web page structure
  • Don't use color-dependent navigation
  • Use high-contrast color combinations

Hearing impairments:

  • Provide visual or text equivalent of all auditory content (including captioning for video)

Mobility impairments:

  • Make pages fully navigable with keyboard commands in addition to mouse
  • Include "skip navigation" features in web page structure
  • If the website requires forms that "time out" after a specified time, allow users to have more time.

Cognitive impairments:

  • Place high emphasis on clear page structure and navigation
  • Include "skip navigation" features in web page structure
  • If the website requires forms that "time out" after a specified time, allow users to have more time.

Seizure disorders:

  • Avoid blinking and scrolling web page content

↑ back to top

What are some examples of Web accessibility issues?

There are numerous Web accessibility issues which could be used for illustrative purposes, but for purposes of getting started we'll pick three reasonably simple ones.

The first is that of using color (alone) to convey information, without providing the same information in some alternate form. Since color blindness in one form or another may affect as much as 20% of the white adult male population (depending on whose figures you believe), the inability to distinguish certain color combinations affects a huge number of Web page viewers. You can see some helpful simulation of certain types of color blindness at: http://www.vischeck.com/examples/

The second is that of using an uncaptioned image to convey information. Since blind viewers are entirely unable see an image, and since text reader software simply declares the presence of an image by pronouncing the word "image", depending on images alone for content is deeply problematic. In a large number of cases, this issue can be addressed simply by adding an "alt" tag to each image, which provides a caption for the image which will be picked up by text reader software. For example, the text reader might use an alt tag to pronounce "image: Cleveland State University logo", where without the alt tag it would simply pronounce "image" without further elaboration. If you're using a recent version of Internet Explorer under Windows, alt tags can be recognized by sighted users quite easily: if an image contains an alt tag, simply pointing one's mouse at the image onscreen causes the alt tag to display in the foreground of the image onscreen. (Many other browsers do not currently support this direct display of alt tags).

Open up a new browser window at this point (so that you can still see this document in the older window) and point the new window to this URL: http://www.csuohio.edu/ist/training/webaccess/alt.htm

If you're using a recent Windows version of Explorer, point your mouse to either of the two logo images at the top of the page and look for the corresponding alt tags.

In any case, also notice the "skip to content" link at the upper right hand corner of the page. This is an example of "skip navigation", which allows users to skip over introductory sections of a web page and move directly to the "meat of the page ". This is useful both for visually impaired and mobility impaired users. Skip navigation is the third of our three examples in this section.

To see a page which contains (deliberate) examples of these and certain other Web accessibility issues, visit this URL: http://www.csuohio.edu/uctl/508/phase1/altbad.html.

When you get there, note:

  • The red/green color combination (a problem for some color-blind users)
  • The lack of alt tags on all images (visible only in certain browsers, as noted above)
  • The scrolling text (bad for photoepileptic users) The lack of skip navigation options.

Then visit this version of the page, which has been modified to be fully compliant: http://www.csuohio.edu/uctl/508/phase1/index.html .

↑ back to top

What is Section 508?

Since the founding of our country and creation of the U.S. Constitution, it has been a basic principle that all citizens both need and deserve open access to information about the activities of their government in order to make informed decisions as participants in a democracy. Until recently this meant documents on paper, and public libraries have long served to provide this access. In recent times the government has shifted to electronic dissemination of information, using CD-ROM and the Internet for much of the information which previously appeared on paper. This introduced a whole new set of potential barriers for the disabled community, and Congress moved in 1998 to address this situation.

While the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has many provisions dealing with accessibility, section 508 is not part of the ADA. Section 508 refers specifically to section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which Congress amended in 1998 to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. These standards became effective on June 21, 2001. They apply to universities because of the federal funding received by most universities.

If you would like to read the actual legislative language, visit the Section 508 official home page at http://www.section508.gov/. The entity charged with developing the actual accessibility standards is the Access Board, and you can visit their home page at http://www.access-board.gov/508.htm. If you would like a "plain English" version , try "Understanding Section 508 & the Access Board's Standards " at http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/brochure.htm.

↑ back to top

What is the difference between Section 508 Web Standards & Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0?

By law universities must follow Section 508 Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications standards, which you can find at http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/guide/1194.22.htm. These are the standards developed by the Federal government.

There is another well-known set of standards in this area, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C; a committee which exercises a degree of governance over the WWW). They are similar but not identical to the section 508 standards; you can find them at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/.

We mention that fact here because most software and tools used to create 508-compliant Web pages offer the alternative of using either or both sets of standards as a criterion.

↑ back to top

What is CSU doing to comply with Section 508?

When this problem became evident in Spring 2002, personnel from the UCTL and IS&T began researching the issue and planning efforts to address the problem. We quickly discovered that little had been done elsewhere; most university campuses were waiting for someone else to make the first move. Most pages on the Web at this writing (October 2002) are not 508 compliant.

Based on substantial work done at Arizona State University we adopted a multi-phase plan stretching over approximately four years. Each phase is expected to last one year; phase 1 begins in August 2002, and addresses 508 awareness in addition to those specific page modifications which are both relatively easy and responsible for relatively large proportions of our non-compliance. Phases 2, 3, and 4 address progressively more complex topics, until by the end of phase 4 we will have addressed all of section 508 and some of the W3C accessibility standards. You can read about the content of CSU's four accessibility phases at http://www.csuohio.edu/training/webaccess/.

In each phase, the UCTL and IS&T will provide:

  • Group training containing a contextual overview of the content for the current phase;
  • Software-specific group training using the most common tools employed on campus for creating and editing web pages (currently, this means: Dreamweaver; FrontPage; Microsoft Word; Microsoft PowerPoint, and hand-coded HTML)
  • One-on-one consultation for faculty and staff (by appointment, we will sit down individually and work through web pages one step at a time, evaluating and repairing compliance problems in partnership with the faculty and staff who maintain the pages)
  • Web links to relevant information resources, examples, and tools.

Incidentally - we're not suggesting that you should wait four years if you already have the technical competence to do this yourself. If you're part of that group, we've already compiled a sizable collection of links for you, so that you can get on with it. We expect that it will take four years for us to assist the entire campus through this process one step at a time, since most members of the community are starting at very close to zero knowledge of Web accessibility.

↑ back to top

Phase I Accessibility Guidelines

The guidelines for Phase I are:

  • Use clear and simple language - Using clear and simple language benefits all users, including those who have cognitive or learning disabilities and those whose first language differs from your own.
  • Hyperlinks - Make hyperlink titles meaningful ("CSU Homepage" instead of "Click Here!").
  • Emails - Make emails explicit. (This means an email link should have the email address instead of the description, to help the user distinguish the email link from links to other pages.)
  • Color and Visibility - Make color contrast distinct, and make information conveyed with color also available without color.
  • Images and other non-text elements - Provide a meaningful text equivalent ( ALT attributes) for every non-text element.

↑ back to top

Phase II Accessibility Guidelines

  • Avoid screen flicker - Avoid causing the screen to flicker or blink. Common things to avoid are blinking or scrolling text and rapidly changing animations.
  • Use skip navigation links - Provide a way for users to skip over long lists of repetitive links (also known as the "Skip to Content" link).
  • Image maps - Provide alt attributes for client side image maps, and redundant text links for each active region of a server-side image map. 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.
  • Data tables - Use row and column headers and ID attributes when creating data tables.
  • Frames
  • Text-only alternative pages - Use text-only alternatives in addition to implementing all other Section 508 guidelines when compliance with the guidelines cannot be achieved any other way. The content of the text-only alternative also needs to be updated every time the primary page's content changes.

↑ back to top

What does this mean for faculty & staff?

If you are responsible for Web pages belonging to CSU, you are responsible for ensuring that these pages are compliant with section 508. This means that as you revise and update existing pages, you need to bring them into compliance - and as you create new pages, you need to ensure that they are compliant from the beginning. We understand that you probably don't know how to do that right now; please see the preceding paragraph for what we're doing to address that situation.

This also means that you will need to continue to learn about Section 508 for some time to come, since some of the more complex aspects of the implementation are still being argued out (a significant part of our phase 4 contains these still somewhat ambiguous items).

It is important to note that we cannot simply fix your pages for you. In addition to the fact that we don't have nearly enough resources to do that, there is the far more important fact that we do not know your content nearly as well as you do. Bringing web pages into compliance sometimes means major content or structural change - and only the person who created the original page is qualified to determine which of potentially many modifications can bring the page into compliance while still retaining its informational or instructional integrity. In other words - without your help, we're likely to louse it up.

We're also not the "508 police" - we won't come knocking on your office door one day with a warrant to confiscate non-compliant Web pages. (However, since this is a Federal issue, the university will ultimately become potentially liable for monetary damages in cases of non-compliance which affect disabled students).
↑ back to top

What about WebCT?

CSU uses WebCT to place some, but not all, of its instructional Web content online. WebCT itself is 508 compliant as of version 3.6 (which we currently employ). However, WebCT provides only a framework within which instructors place content - and it is the framework, not the contents, which WebCT guarantees to be 508 compliant.

Much as placing new furniture inside a totally white house does not make the furniture white, placing new content inside WebCT does not render the content 508 compliant. Such content (Web pages, documents, etc.) must be checked separately for compliance before loading into WebCT in order to ensure full compliance. It is both easy and common to find inaccessible content inside an accessible structure.
↑ back to top

What about Electronic Course Reserves?

Electronic Course Reserves (ECR) are wonderful. A substantial portion of these files, though, are online in the form of Adobe image-only PDF files, which provide essentially a snapshot of documents. The good news is that image-only PDF files provide access to a facsimile of almost any document which can appear on paper. The bad news is that they are completely incompatible with text readers used by the visually impaired.

There is another type of PDF file - "tagged PDF" - which can be read by text readers. But it takes a great deal more time to create, and requires that the original document be available either in electronic form (a Microsoft Word file, for example) or as a very high-resolution original which can be scanned via Optical Character Recognition. That last partmeans "good originals only" - no photocopies or hand annotations.

As this is written, the University Libraries are requesting that materials submitted for ECR come either as URLs (addresses on the Web where the document can be found already online, as in an electronic journal), or as digital files (such as word processor files or spreadsheet files). Lacking either of the above, they will accept very high quality originals which can be scanned via OCR, but caution that this may involve substantial preparation time.

This is a major change, and is accompanied by much wailing and gnashing of teeth (both inside the library and among the faculty). We suggest simply that you not shoot the messenger; the library staff is between a rock and a hard place and has been working very hard to explore all legal alternatives.
↑ back to top

What help is available on campus?

By now you are probably getting the impression that there is a great deal to be dealt with here (you're right...) We would like to reiterate that we are here to help you through the whole process one step at a time. Don't panic!

Each of the planned four phases is expected to last a full calendar year. For each phase, we will provide orientation sessions, hands-on training, web links to information and tools, and most importantly one-on-one consulting.

For orientation and training sessions during the current semester please consult the training calendar at http://www.csuohio.edu/uctl/calendar/index.html. If you have a group of people and need sessions outside of this schedule, contact us and ask; odds are we can accommodate you.

For access to our current collection of online resources, visit these two URLs: http://www.csuohio.edu/ist/training/webaccess/ and http://www.csuohio.edu/uctl/508/index.html.

Addendum: A Few Tools Questions

In our orientation sessions, we're often asked for tips about some basic tools to be used in bringing Web pages into compliance. We have a growing collection in the UCTL, and if you contact us for one-on-one assistance we will use them with you (many require a degree of skill and experience to use successfully).

However, if you would like a starting point, one popular program for checking 508 compliance is "Bobby". You can find it on the Web at http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp.

In this form it's a free service; you provide a URL, and Bobby checks for compliance. It is very helpful - but interpreting the feedback it gives you can require a degree of experience - so don't say we didn't warn you! (We also use AccVerify and LIFT for Dreamweaver for higher-powered versions of this process)

For those of you strongly moved to explore the process of creating tagged PDF files for yourself, we recommend that you acquire a copy of Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and begin exploring the information at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrobat_508.html.

Contact info for the authors:
Dr. Wm. Beasley: Voice: 216-687-5583; Email w.beasley@csuohio.edu
Ms. Moana Jarvis: Voice: 216-687-4788; Email m.l.jarvis@csuohio.edu
↑ back to top

LIBRARIES  |  CAMPUSNET  |  ACADEMIC CALENDAR  |  CLASS SCHEDULE  |  CAMPUS E-MAIL  |  BLACKBOARD  |  eLEARNING

Cleveland State University   •   2121 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44115-2214   •   216.687.2000

This page last modified Monday, October 16, 2006