FedStats’ Work on Accessibility

1. FedStats’ Workon Accessibility Prepared for the UNECE Work Session on Statistical Dissemination and Communication, 12 September 2006 Laurie Brown, U.S. Social Security Administration Marianne Zawitz, U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics

2. Background • Workforce Investment Act, including the Rehabilitation Amendments, signed into law August 7, 1998 • Strengthened Section 508—changing the focus of accessibility from providing accommodation upon request, to actively making technology and information accessible • Covers six broad areas of information technology, including the Web • Guidelines written by the Access Board went into effect June 25, 2001

3. Text equivalents provided fornon-text elements Multimedia alternatives synchronized Information conveyed with color is also available without color Documents organized so they are readable without stylesheets Redundant text links provided for server-side image maps Client-side image maps used except for non-geometirc regions Row and column headers identified for data tables Associate data cells and headers for data tables Title frames Avoid screen flicker at certain frequencies Text-only pages used only when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way Functional text provided for scripted elements Pages requiring a plug-in must provide a link to a compliant plug-in Method provided to skip repetitive navigation links When a timed response is required, user alerted and given sufficient time to indicate more time is required Section 508 guidelines See http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12#Web for full guidelines.

4. FedStats and Section 508 • Federal statistical agencies were frustrated by the lack of guidance and faced a tremendous workload • June 24, 2002 – FedStats’ workshop to focus on requirements for tables, charts, and mathematical formulas • Included representatives from all of the principal federal statistical agencies as well as other government agencies and members of the disabled, research, and vendor communities. • Workshop proceedings and summary white paper available online See workshop proceedings at http://workshops.fedstats.gov/ and resulting white paper at http://www.fedstats.gov/policy/publications/fedstats_wp1.html

5. Tables • Workshop findings • No agreement how to mark up tables • Current technology does not allow visually impaired users to use the data as intended • Lack of automated resources • No methods exist to validate the quality of markup for accessibility • Update • Additional support for accessible tables in Adobe Acrobat, although not for complex tables

6. Charts • Workshop findings • What should the text alternative include? • What are acceptable alternatives for content that cannot be made truly accessible? • Existing assistive technology not well suited to the presentation of graphical information • Current graphic formats do not maintain underlying structural image information • Update • SVG graphics are still not widely supported • Software developed to automatically create text descriptions

7. Mathematical Formulas • Workshop findings • MathML, MathML, MathML • Update • More browser support for MathML • Assistive technology starting to support MathML

8. Summary • Resources included in work session paper, workshop proceedings, and summary white paper • Questions?Laurie Brown – Laurie.Brown@ssa.govMarianne Zawitz – Marianne.Zawitz@usdoj.gov