Electronic Content

You should know:

  • Identify electronic content.
  • Identify what accessibility requirements apply to types of electronic content.
  • Identify examples of different categories of electronic content.
  • Identify the purpose and structure of World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

Electronic content encompasses a wide set of differently encoded information and is not restricted to “web” or “documents” only. Electronic content includes “electronic information and data, as well as the encoding that defines its structure, presentation, and interactions” (36 CFR 1194 E103). Electronic content includes Web pages, electronic documents, and both Web and native software applications.

For example, the electronic content contained in a typical Web page would include all the information a user accesses via the browser, also known as a user agent, as well as all of the code that defines how the information is presented (often defined in a combination of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), and/or other files).

For a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, the electronic content includes the information presented in the reader’s view of the document as well as the PDF “tags” and other document properties that define various information attributes and overall document structure.

For non-web content, including information in native software applications, electronic content includes the information presented via a user interface, as well as the code that defines how the information is structured and presented.

Use of electronic content

The Revised Section 508 Standards also address electronic content in two categories of content for federal agencies:

  1. Public facing: electronic content that is public facing.
  2. Agency official communication: electronic content (whether public facing or not) that constitutes official business and is communicated by an agency through one or more of the following:
    • An emergency notification
    • An initial or final decision adjudicating an administrative claim or proceeding
    • An internal or external program or policy announcement
    • A notice of benefits, program eligibility, employment opportunity, or personnel action;
    • A formal acknowledgement of receipt
    • A survey questionnaire
    • A template or form
    • Educational or training materials
    • Intranet content designed as a Web page

Note: The Revised Section 508 Standards clarify that official records maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration are not required to conform to the Revised Section 508 Standards unless they are public facing.

Accessibility Requirements for Electronic Content

The Revised Section 508 Standards require that both public-facing content and agency official communications must conform to the Level A and Level AA Success Criteria and Conformance Requirements in the W3C WCAG 2.0.

The World Wide Web (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were created to be technology agnostic (e.g., HTML, Windows-native, Mac-native, Mobile-native, etc.). However, they were primarily documented to support electronic content presented via a web browser (user agent). The Revised Section 508 Standards state that when applying WCAG 2.0 to non-web documents (e.g., PDFs, MS Word documents, MS PowerPoint presentations) and non-web software (e.g., Windows-native, Mac-native, or other “native” applications), we must substitute the term “document” or “software,” respectively, wherever WCAG 2.0 uses the term “Web page” or “page” (36 CFR 1194 E205.4.1). Further, the Revised Section 508 Standards provide some exceptions for non-web documents and software. Specifically, non-web documents and software are not required to conform to the following four WCAG 2.0

Success Criteria:

  • Success Criterion 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks
  • Success Criterion 2.4.5 Multiple Ways
  • Success Criterion 3.2.3 Consistent Navigation
  • Success Criterion 3.2.4 Consistent Identification

The Revised Section 508 Standards do not specify accessibility requirements for electronic content that is not public facing or is not agency official communication. Day-to-day communications between federal employees, including emails and shared documents, are not required to comply with the WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria. Nevertheless, content creators must be aware that any content that may become public facing or that may be included in “agency official communication” needs to conform to WCAG 2.0. Therefore, it is generally a best practice to create documents and other electronic content that are accessible from origination. Naturally, any content shared with government employees, partners, or constituents with known disabilities must be made accessible to those individuals regardless of whether the content will ever be made public or used in agency official communications.

Examples:

Public-Facing Electronic Content

Some examples of public-facing electronic content include:

  • Any content on a federal agency’s external website
  • Federal government reports published in PDF format and distributed to members of the public (e.g., via email distribution, on an agency’s public website, via media outlets, etc.)
  • A press briefing recorded and posted to YouTube

Agency Official Communications

In addition to the examples provided in the definition of agency official communications, such communications could include:

  • Internal agency policy memoranda
  • Help files and/or instructional documents for internal agency systems
  • Agency-wide document style guides and associated document templates
    • Online learning content

W3C WCAG 2.0

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a single, shared technical standard for Web content accessibility, defined and accepted among an international consortium of member organizations. The W3C developed and maintains WCAG as part of its mission to ensure long-term growth for the Web and develop standards, protocols, and guidelines that define the key parts of the Web (including Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), HTML, and CSS specifications).

WCAG was designed primarily for content developers and authors to explain how to make content more accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG 2.0 defines a number of Success Criteria, which provide testable technical standards for developing accessible content.

The WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria are organized under 12 “guidelines”. These guidelines are grouped in four overarching “principles”. The WCAG 2.0 hierarchy is as follows:

  • Principle
    • Guideline
      • Success Criterion

WCAG Principles - [KEY-TERM]

The four WCAG 2.0 principles describe the “foundation necessary for anyone to access and use [content].” In order to make content accessible to anyone, the content must be:

POUR

  1. Perceivable — Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive. This means that users must be able to perceive the information being presented; it can’t be invisible to all of their senses.
  2. Operable — User interface components and navigation must be operable. This means that users must be able to operate the interface; the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform.
  3. Understandable — Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable. This means that users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface; the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding.
  4. Robust — Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. This means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance; as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible.
    You may see these four principles referenced using the acronym POUR.

WCAG Guidelines

The WCAG 2.0 Guidelines provide logical groupings of the Success Criteria. For each grouping, the Guidelines outline what is necessary to make content accessible to as many people as possible, whatever their abilities.

WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria

The Success Criteria describe specifically what outcomes content must achieve in order to be accessible. Each Success Criterion is designed to be objective, measurable, and testable. WCAG 2.0 characterizes each Success Criterion according to three “levels of conformance:” A, AA, and AAA. The Level A Success Criteria are considered the most essential for accessibility, most widely applicable, and most reasonable to achieve. The Level AA and Level AAA, by degree, are deemed either less important, less applicable, or more difficult to achieve. Because the Revised Section 508 Standards require government agencies to conform to the Level A and Level AA Success Criteria, this course includes content only related to those levels.

WCAG has included a number of resources to help developers and testers of electronic content understand the Success Criteria. For each WCAG 2.0 Success Criterion, WCAG provides the following:

  • How to meet the WCAG 2.0 Success Criterion — Defines and describes the Success Criterion and requirements for providing accessible content to meet it.
  • Understanding the WCAG 2.0 Success Criterion — Provides additional guidance and background to help developers and testers better understand the purpose and intent of the Success Criterion.
  • Techniques for meeting the WCAG 2.0 Success Criterion — Provides specific details about how to develop accessible content, including code examples for various technologies and examples of both sufficient techniques and common failures.