It's a challenge to make Gov 2.0 accessible to disabled

As the government uses the web to place more information online and increase transparency, it also has an obligation to ensure accessibility to the disabled under the federal law known as Section 508. That is proving to be a challenging task.

Advocates for people with disabilities initially found a number of accessibility flaws on the Recovery.gov site that have since been fixed, but there are ongoing, widespread accessibility glitches at federal websites such as WhiteHouse.gov, Data.gov and even Disability.gov.

"This administration is trying to use new technologies," Sharron Rush, executive director of Knowbility, a nonprofit accessibility solutions group in Austin, Texas, told Federal Computer Week. "In the rush to implement Web 2.0, accessibility tends to get pushed back on the priority list."

Census Bureau data shows that, about 18 percent of the U.S. population has some level of disability in sight, hearing, cognition, medical condition or mobility, and 12 percent of the total population has a severe disability. Under federal law, government websites must be compatible with assistive technologies for people with disabilities, including screen readers that read words aloud or print them in Braille. This means sites must have features such as captioning for all photos and videos; specific formats for charts of data; and alternative commands for Go and Search.

The National Federation of the Blind has taken up the issue, filing administrative complaints about inaccessible websites against the Social Security Administration, Small Business Administration and the Department of Education.

Rush said the Obama administration is aware of the issues and knows what needs to be done. "I would like to see them take a leadership position on this and have the federal government be a real exemplar of accessibility," she said.

For more on accessibility:
- see this Federal Computer Week article

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