Section 508 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

The Section 508 refresh approved in January of 2017 adopts the standards of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), a globally recognized voluntary consensus standard for web content and ICT. In fact, the rule references Level A and Level AA Success Criteria and Conformance Requirements in WCAG 2.0 and applies them not only to websites, but also to electronic documents and software.

What is WCAG 2.0?

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are part of a series of web accessibility guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organization for the Internet. They are a set of guidelines that specify how to make content accessible, primarily for people with disabilities—but also for all user agents, including highly limited devices, such as mobile phones. The current version, WCAG 2.0, was published in December 2008.

WCAG 2.0 is a stable, referenceable technical standard. The full standards and much greater detail can be found on the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative website.

WCAG 2.0 has 12 guidelines that are organized under 4 principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust:

Perceivable

Provide text alternatives for non-text content.
Provide captions and other alternatives for multimedia.
Create content that can be presented in different ways, including by assistive technologies, without losing meaning.
Make it easier for users to see and hear content.

Operable

Make all functionality available from a keyboard.
Give users enough time to read and use content.
Do not use content that causes seizures.
Help users navigate and find content.

Understandable

Make text readable and understandable.
Make content appear and operate in predictable ways.
Help users avoid and correct mistakes.

Robust

Maximize compatibility with current and future user tools.

Levels of Conformance

For each guideline, there are testable success criteria, which are at three levels: A, AA, and AAA. The minimum level of conformance is A; the level of conformance targeted by Section 508 is level AA. The AAA level is considered to be constrictive to the design process; beneficial but certainly not required.

The Success Criteria were assigned to one of the three levels of conformance by the working group after taking into consideration a wide range of interacting issues. Some of the common factors evaluated when setting the level included:

whether the Success Criterion is essential
whether it is possible to satisfy the Success Criterion for all Web sites and types of content that the Success Criteria would apply to
whether the Success Criterion requires skills that could reasonably be achieved by the content creators
whether the Success Criterion would impose limits on the "look & feel" and/or function of the Web page
whether there are no workarounds if the Success Criterion is not met.

Key Takeaway: Section 508 uses WCAG 2.0 level AA as the standard online content designers should strive to meet.