Q&A: Tim Creagan on the 508 refresh and agency compliance

The U.S. Access Board is revamping Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and has completed a draft refresh. To kick off the commenting period, a public hearing was held on May 15. FierceGovernmentIT caught up with Timothy Creagan, senior accessibility specialist at the Access Board, following the hearing to talk about the feedback received thus far and how the rule will affect agencies.

The draft rule is available for comment until June 21.

FierceGovernmentIT: Did you feel the feedback was positive from the hearing?

Tim Creagan: Yeah, I felt for the most part people were very positive. People appreciated the amount of work that went into it and people appreciated the fact that we had taken a lot of the TEITAC (Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee) committee's suggestions. For example, by organizing by features, promoting WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) harmonization, and harmonization with other standards in general. It was a really positive experience.

It was also really helpful when people raised issues that we had. For example, with regard to cognition, that was a very difficult issue and continues to be challenging, because the committee wasn't able to come to a consensus on an approach. We weren't, unfortunately, able to come up with anything that we could put into a regulation that would be testable. So, I appreciate the people who flagged the issue. It would be great if, you know, people could give us some specifics rather than just say, "gee, this is an issue."

Well, we understand it's an issue, what we're looking for are solutions. It's a very difficult issue, so we'd love more specifics on that if someone can offer them.

FGIT: Were there any other issues that you're really hoping to get more information on? Is there specific feedback that you're seeking besides the cognition issue?

Creagan: Just in general, and this really goes to governmental users, the people seeing issues with implementation, the people who see questions about how this would play out in the real world, so to speak. So in other words, if this were to be implemented, as is, in a federal environment, what would the reaction be? What would the impact be on agency processes?

For instance, the definition of "covered material" or "covered content," which is official communications by the agency, that's a key question, that's provision number E103.5, for us and it's a key question for any agency. So the question is: How does this get implemented? How does this get enforced? What happens if somebody's not in compliance? Is there a better way to say that? Is there a better way to cover content?

That's a very very big, general question. If I were to pick number one, that would be my choice. I would say, "please let us know what people think about their content provisions." I think that's really really important. E103.3.1, electronic content, that would be number one, it's in the ANPRM.

Since we're very very interested in comments, and I understand in a federal environment, people may think, I really can't say anything because I'm not authorized to speak for the agency. There's nothing to stop people from commenting as individuals and say, "from my personal experience, the following..." Because any comments are helpful, whether they give us new ideas or help us to understand how something's being interpreted or understood. You know how they always say, it's hard to be humorous or sarcastic on the web because there's no context? Similarly when you write regulations, you think it's as clear as possible, but that doesn't always happen. So any feedback saying something isn't right makes you wonder, "How could they possibly have misunderstood what I wrote?" But it happens, so any feedback is good feedback.

FGIT: What are the challenges facing IT personnel, with regard to procurement? And how is current experience with 508 shaping the way you drafted the provision?

Creagan: I think one of the things that we hear over and over is that the provisions are not understandable. They don't come with context. People don't know how they're supposed to apply it. So, currently what we have is a lot of technical assistance, we have FAQs that we drew up with GSA. We have an online 508 training university. Certainly our staff goes out and conducts these trainings on 508. There are a number of commercial tools for implementing and testing current 508 provisions and eventually, whatever new provisions come out, I am sure that similar materials will be developed.

Having said that, one of the things that we were very aware of is that in this current draft the format is, there will be a provision and many of the provisions will have an advisory right behind it. So the advisory will say provision E103.3.1 electronic content and then there will be an advisory for E103.3.1 electronic content. And the advisory is trying to give examples, explanations or references to places where people can get further information.

We did that very deliberately. It's almost like building in technical assistance, because the advisories are not part of the standard, and if we were to ask agencies--for example DOJ, we used a similar format when we drafted the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)/ABA (Architectural Barriers Act) accessibility guideline. There's a provision followed by an advisory, and the Department of Justice, which is the agency that's currently engaged in the rulemaking to finalize the ADA/ABA rule requirements, will tell you that the advisories have no legal force or effect. It's like white noise.

What really matters and what's enforceable is what the provision says, and we're aware of that, but the attempt and concern is that we're trying to make everything as user-friendly as possible. So we have the built in advisories, plus the reference to WCAG, and all the WCAG supporting materials, which is tremendous.

So, all of this is a reaction to current problems where people don't understand what they're reading, they don't understand what they're supposed to do, and they're just not real clear on what their next steps are, so that was a big issue when we thought about drafting this provision.

A second thing would be we're trying to recognize that there's interoperability today. Back 10 years ago when these standards came out, you didn't have a multi-function device as common in use at agencies as they are now. So, we're trying to focus on what are the features, not just what something is called.

Those are just two of the issues that we re-did in reaction to what's going on now.

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