Efforts to update Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which requires federal agencies to make electronic content and information technology accessible to people with disabilities, have been underway since 2006. The repeated delays could render a future, final refresh obsolete, said several accessibility advocates at a Jan. 11 Access Board hearing in Washington, D.C. on the latest draft (.pdf) of the regulation.

The Access Board is in a footrace with the exponential expansion of technology, said Dave Porter, chief executive and accessibility consultant at CompUnique. Even if the revision gets the specifications for today's technology right, it won't be able to predict the accessibility challenges posed by tomorrow's technology, he said during testimony.

"I don't want to be too fear-inducing," said Jim Tobias, president of Inclusive Technologies, "but if the refresh schedule that we're currently on is repeated the next time we're going to be looking at trying to guess now what technologies will be in use 10, 12, 15 years from now. That's pretty impossible to do."

Tobias urged the board to adopt a "rolling refresh" so that it can identify compliance issues with technologies as they begin to emerge, and depend on more comprehensive guidance materials.  

Access Board member Hans Van Winkle, vice president at engineering firm Parsons Brinkerhoff, agreed saying "[we need to] have a refresh, a revision process that keeps up with the pace of technology." He also urged the board to get the current refresh "out in front of Congress" as soon as possible.

The Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee proposed revisions to Sec. 508 back in 2008. It was a "watershed" moment for accessibility, according to testimony from Brian Landrigan, director of marketing for The Paciello Group, a accessibility consultant serving companies that contract with the government. Now, 4 years later the proposals of TEITAC have not yet been implemented in a Sec. 508 refresh, and accessibility is suffering as a result.

"We are now seeing clients postpone adoption of recommendations--literally waiting to see if the adoption of new Section 508 guidelines will be further delayed or even cancelled," said Landrigan.

Another Access Board member, Neil Melick, assistant city administrator of West Palm Beach, Fla., agreed that the process needs to be revised and the refresh is already extremely delayed. He echoed the frustration cited in several testimonies but also indicated that his staff has become overwhelmed with the long refresh process.

"We understand this, we feel it. We sit in our meetings and we wonder why it can't take place. And there's a certain amount of time--I'm visually impaired so believe me, the technology side is something very dear to me," said Melick.

"But there's a lot of other standards and guidelines that we deal with. And I just I'm hearing this and I can just feel the anguish in the staff as they say, 'oh my gosh when are we going to find the time.'"

For more:
- download the latest Sec. 508 refresh draft (.pdf)

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