Another question asked in the Q&A section of LinkedIn:
I’m working on a site redesign, and a few questions came up in a meeting yesterday that have me my scratching my head. I work for a nonprofit, and apparently there’s a ‘feeling’ that we may be required to go 508 compliant in order to retain tax-exempt status sometime in the not-so-distant future. I have no problems with that, as we would like to be fully accessible to everyone, but 54 percent of our site visitors still use IE 6. Is it possible to be 508 compliant, standards compliant, and function in an IE 6 browser? Are there any good resources for backwards compatibility with IE 6 that anyone can recommend?
My response:
Actually, Section 508 came out in 1999, a couple years before IE6, so you should be about right!
As a non-profit organization, you’re actually one of the few organizations who may have a legitimate concern about Section 508. Many other organizations think they need to be worried, but it really only affects Federal agencies or some others that receive federal funding.
As someone mentioned above, Jim Thatcher is a wonderful reference in this matter. He actually has written a few books on the subject, most recently “web accessibility: web standards and regulatory compliance”.
As for “backwards compatibility” with IE6 — I haven’t seen the site you’re looking at, but I can make a few guesses of some heardache you’re dealing with:
- alignment when you have padding/margins as well as a width specified on an element
- use of transparent PNGs
- margins being twice as wide as they should be
These and many other IE Exploder issues are listed out at positioniseverything.net. If you’d like someone to take a quick once-over on the site to identify any of these issues, please feel free to contact me. I’ve been a developer for over 8 years, so I’m well-versed in the “idiosyncracies” of IE6 (as well as accessibility – my Masters research was actually focussed on RIA Accessibility)
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually…Target has been the subject of a large lawsuit concerning the accessibility of its website. One of the arguments was the section 508 was a “best practice” and should have been followed. As I recall, it was settled out of court but is still a real eye-opener. Overall, if a site follows accessibility standards (see W3C) it should be 508 compliant. The tricky stuff comes when plug-ins and other content types, like PDF, are used.
Chuck Kramer’s last blog post..At Sea – Day 7
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Thanks for the comment, Chuck! But actually the Target lawsuit was not in regards to Section 508; it was ADA and two California state statutes. I mentioned it here: http://www.afhill.com/blog/accessibility/whats-the-deal-with-web-accessibility-and-the-ada/
You’re right, on the whole WCAG1.0 and Section 508 are quite similar. However with WCAG2.0 now being a recommendation, the rules have changed slightly and adherence to one does not necessarily equate to compliance with the other.
Follow me on twitter: afhill262
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