Useful Definitions Related to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act

NC State's Center for Universal Design provides the following definition of universal design:

"Universal design is the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. The intent of universal design is to simplify life for everyone by making products, communications, and the built environment more usable by as many people as possible at little or no extra cost. Universal design benefits people of all ages and abilities."

Dreamweaver:

"Accessibility refers to making websites and web products usable for people with visual, auditory, motor, and other disabilities. Macromedia Dreamweaver MX provides tools that make the product accessible and it provides tools that help you author accessible content.

"Examples of accessibility features for software products and websites include screen reader support, text equivalents for graphics, keyboard shortcuts, change of display colors to high contrast, and so on.

"As the number of people with disabilities who access the web continues to grow, it is increasingly important that developers make their products and websites accessible to all potential users. To that end, the U.S. government and other organizations have established legislation and guidelines to ensure that developers produce accessible content. For more information about two significant initiatives, see the World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative and Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act."

SOURCES

A full listing of all standards from Section 508 dealing with internet/intranet programs is found here:

http://www.ncsu.edu/it/dss/webaccess/standards.html

The Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards are available here:

http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/508standards.htm

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are available here:

http://www.w3.org/WAI/