Section 508 is a portion of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which sets the accessible information standards for government agencies in the United States. A subset of Section 508 relates to specifically web-based intranet and internet information. Here is a summary of the requirements:
- (a) Must have text alternatives for non-text elements
- (b) Multimedia must have synchronized alternates (i.e, captions)
- (c) Information conveyed with color must also be available without color
- (d) Content must be readable without stylesheet
- (e,f) Clauses (2) related to outdated image
<map>
elements - (g) Data tables must have row and column headers
- (h) Irregular or complex data tables must have markup to associate table headers and rows
- (i)
<frame>
elements (outdated) must have titles, extends to<iframe>
elements as well - (j) Avoid rapid and/or slow animations above 2Hz and below 55Hz to accomodate users with photosensitive or motion triggered disorders.
- (k) Must have up-to-date text-only equivalent of all web pages
- (l) Script created content/UI must have functional screen readable text
- (m) Links to required plug-ins and applets are required
- (n) Must have accessible form elements
- (o) Skip navigation links for repetitive navigations
- (p) For timed responses, users shall be alerted AND given sufficient time to indicate more time is requires (e.g., bank session timeouts)
It's important to note that Section 508, as it relates to web development, is a bit of an outdated document. It is recommended that authors aim for WCAG 2.0 compliance as the U.S. government is expected to adopt the standard in the near future.
@gtarnoff - I think I've got this pretty well wrapped up. If you have a minute, I'd love some feedback.