Accessibility Standards
I though a list of Accessibility standards with links and descriptions would be a good start here.
Hit reply and let us know about Accessibility standards you know of, where we can find them, and what they're about.
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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For an overview on the current legislation in .de on the federal, state and local level see:
Ordinance on the Creation of Barrier-Free Information Technology in Accordance with the Act on Equal Opportunities for Disabled Persons,
current legislation in the individual states and
federal anti-discrimination law
The links all all in German (of course), but I'm working on getting an english translation of the ordinance published within the next few days.
/T
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There is a terrific list of US State policies at:
http://www.ittatc.org/laws/stateLawAtGlance.cfm
I am particularly interested in hearing about what is happening in Germany. From the translations I have seen the policy looks impressive. I would love to hear how it is being put into practice. Does anyone have experience with German government accessibility work?
Cheers,
Bob
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| Tomas wrote: |
| but I'm working on getting an english translation of the ordinance published within the next few days. |
It's up at http://www.einfach-fuer-alle.de/artikel/bitv_english/
Disclaimer: German legalese translated into English legalese :-)
/T
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| bregan wrote: |
| I am particularly interested in hearing about what is happening in Germany |
It's actually a hot topic right now since 2003 is the European Year of People with Disabilities http://www.eypd2003.org/, so it gets quite a bit of media attention.
The legal situation here is that the constitution was amended a couple of years ago to include people with disabilities and a federal anti-discrimination law was passed by parliament early last year. Following that particular law ("Gesetz zur Gleichstellung von Menschen mit Behinderung" if you want to google for it) was a regulation that went into effect in spring '02. That's the so-called BITV I mentioned earlier which covers IT accessibility, but only applies to the public sector on a federal level, not to private entities.
Technically, it doesn't even apply to entities in which the feds are a major shareholder, but which are not part of the buerocracy, like the federal railroad or Lufthansa.
The appendix of this regulation is basically a translation of WCAG1, some checkpoints re-arranged, but other than that only minor changes to the original text. But still it's much more verbose than what other countries have, especially those that are based on common law ("If it's not accessible, fix it." - impossible to think of for German buerocrats)
One of the disadvantages of a federal system like ours is that each and every one of the states has to pass its' own anti-discrimination law, which then applies to the state and local authorities. So far only 7 out of 16 have passed such a law and only 5 out of those have something comparable to the federal BITV.
HTH
/T
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| Quote: |
| That's the so-called BITV I mentioned earlier which covers IT accessibility, but only applies to the public sector on a federal level, not to private entities. |
Here is the US, Section 508 also only applies to federal sites and IT. However, accessibility got a real boost from vendors seeking government contracts. Groups like IBM, Price Waterhouse Consulting (now IBM) and Accenture have pushed the issue as a way of landing contracts.
Is this happening in Germany as well? If so, who is pushing it?
Cheers,
Bob
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| bregan wrote: |
| If so, who is pushing it? |
On a federal level the administration is pushing itself. The regulation clearly states that all new content has to conform to BITV priority 1 and some new content has to conform to priority 1 and 2 from the day the regulation went in to effect. This means that nothing can be published or re-designed without meeting a certain level of BITV-criteria. Legacy content has to be fixed by 2005 or it has to be deleted from the server.
Unfortunately I haven't seen any government site in .de conform completely in all points, even if they were relaunched after the regulation was passed. But nevertheless they claimed full conformance in their press releases, because that's what their agency sold them.
/T
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The Office of the e-Envoy website has comprehensive guidance for UK Government websites (central and local government). See:
http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk/Resources/WebGuidelines/fs/en.
In particular, see the "Illustrated Handbook for Web Management Teams". The original guidelines contained a specific section on accessibility, but that has now been incorporated into all areas of the handbook.
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There is a fairly comprehensive list on the WAI site at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/
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Welcome to the forum Julie, good to have you here 
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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All this begs the question; Is the worldwide designer community about to become tied in legal knots by the laws and differing required standards of different Countries?
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It's a good question, and worth a Which countries accessibility laws to follow? thread.
Please continue to use this thread to point out links to Accessibility laws and standards.
Or just ignore me and do whatever the hell you want
Nigel
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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