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Subject:Re: Section 508 Compliance and Online Help From:"Glenn Emerson" <gemerso1 -at- rochester -dot- rr -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 18 Aug 2003 16:42:07 -0400
The guidelines for websites are applicable to HTML based help and hypermedia
in general.
A good checklist can be found at WebAIM.org. This is a disability advocacy
website.
The specific rules and requirements are in federal regulations 1194.21 &
.22, if I remember right. Basically it's a matter of making sure that images
have alt tags, links have titles, tables have proper metadata attributes
(scope, row and column header labels, etc.) and mouse-driven events also
have keyboard equivalent event traps.
You can find 508 validation tools at CAST (makers of Bobby) and you will
find detailed info at the W3C site also.
Regards,
Glenn Emerson
Xerox Corp.
glenn -dot- emerson -at- usa -dot- xerox -dot- com
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Knopf" <david -at- knopf -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Cc: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2003 4:26 PM
Subject: Re: Section 508 Compliance and Online Help
>
> surfer_924 -at- earthlink -dot- net wrote:
>
> >I'm creating online help for a financial application for a government
> >contract. Six months into the project, the issue of Section 508
compliance
> >has come up. I've done some research and found guidelines for web sites,
> >web based programs, etc. but nothing on online help. Basically, from what
> >I've read, my online help needs to be able to be read by a text reader,
> >and not interfere with any accessibility software.
> >
> >Does anyone have any experience with Section 508 and Online Help, and if
> >so, can you offer any tips or advice?
> >
> >BTW, I'm using RoboHelp HTML 2002r2.
> >
>
> For government customers, we generate Section 508-compliant online Help
> regularly. We use WebWorks Publisher 2003, which generates
> cross-browser, cross-platform Help that conforms to the requirements of
> Section 508, as well as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It's a
> fully automated process. WebWorks includes an automated accessibility
> validator, which identifies any accesssibility errors in your underlying
> source documents (FrameMaker or Word) so you can locate and fix them.
>
> RoboHelp, AFAIK, provides limited support for Section 508, in that the
> navigation panes in WebHelp output are minimally compliant. However,
> RoboHelp does not provide assistance to the author in ensuring that the
> actual content (HTML pages) are compliant.
>
> Accessibility tools are also available for Dreamweaver.
