How to Make Your s Compliant With Section 508

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10/4/13 How to Make Your PDF Files Compliant with Section 508 | Talking PDF

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PDF Files Can Comply with Section 508. Now Its Your Move.Pos ted on A pril 22, 2004 byDuff Jo hnson in T alking PDF

A bli n d pe r son ca n n ot r ea d fr om a scr ee n a n y m or e th a n fr om a pr in ted pa g e. Tec h n olog ies

nonetheless exist th at a llow blind and other disabled users impressiv ely full-featur ed access to

docum ents. To be accessible, howev er, th e docum ent content s mu st be av ailable to these so-called

a ssistiv e techn ologies.

To address the needs of visua lly im paired and other u sers wh o m ust em ploy assistiv e technology in

order to read, the U.S. Cong ress passed Section 5 08 in 1 99 8, an am endm ent to the Reha bilitation

A ct .

Section 5 08 r equir es U.S. Federal gov ernm ent ag encies to procur e accessible softwa re an d to produce

accessible electronic docum ents. Whi le the regulat ions went into effect in 2 001 , v ery , v ery few

Federal gov ernm ent PDF fi les ar e known to com ply or hav e ev en been checked. The regu lations

can also apply in som e instances to contrac tors w ho subm it electronic docum ents to the federal

gov ernm ent. Th e interested reader is strongly encoura ged to consult th e website set up to address

th is issu e at w w w .section 5 08 .g ov.

This article attem pts an operational interpr etation of Section 50 8 requirem ents for a com m on

electronic docum ent form at: th e hu m ble PDF fi le.

Why PDF?

PDF fi les are uniquely v aluable to gov ernm ent precisely becau se they gua ran tee authentici ty to the

printed original. It w as for this reason th at in 1 99 7 the Federal g over nm ent ch ose PDF for their

electronic reading r oom stan dard.

From public-facing conten t (reports, papers, etc.), to record-keeping and h igh-use docum ents such a s

form s, PDF ha s rem ained th e default choice for final-form official content.

It is this v ery qua lity , f idelity to a print ed original , wh ich m akes accessibi li ty har d to achiev e in

PDF. Until Acr obat 6 .0, the issue rem ained a lm ost un addressed the accessibility enh an cem ent

ca pabilities inclu ded w ith Ac robat wer e hopelessly f law ed, and PDF was fast ga ining a r eputat ion a s

inaccessible.

Since the release of Acrobat 6.0 , howev er, PDF fi les are ac tu ally capable of far m ore struc tu re tha n is

required for compliance with Section 5 08. So mu ch, in fact , th at a v ery high degree of usabil i ty for

the disabled has becom e a r ealistic goal. Th is new capability , power ful as it is, raises com plex

questions n oneth eless, and sign ificant pitfalls, pratfalls, pain-points an d law suits lie in w ait for th e

u n w a r y .

What Compliance is Not
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508 Compliance does not assure Usability (a.k.a. happy users)

It is necessar y to distingu ish betw een Accessibility (wh at th e law requires) an d Usability (wh at

w or ks for th e a v er a g e u ser ). Th e ex pe cta t ion s of a ssist iv e tec h n olog y u ser s t en d to ex pl ic it ly r ev olv e

ar oun d usability , not accessibility . You m ight th ink these term s ar e, or at least should be,

syn ony m ous. A nice idea, but it?s not the case.

Section 5 08 delineates form al ac cessibility requir ing th at complete docum ent text an d text

equiv alents of non-textu al docum ent content be deploy able to the assistiv e techn ology dev ices

av ailable in th e ma rketplace. Char itably , one could arg ue tha t the intent is to offload the usability

issue to the int erpretiv e softwa re. One could also ar gu e other w ise, but w e?ll leav e that one for th e

la wy ers .

The point i s this a docum ent m ight form ally com ply with Section 5 08, an d st i l l be

incompr ehensible w hen h eard v ia a screen-reader. To assure tha t it is both complian t an d

com prehensible is a far m ore s igni f icant accom plishm ent and argu ably , i s the only m eaningful

accomplishment.

Compliance CANNOT be achieved by software alone

To org an ize docum ent conten t for a ssistiv e techn ology pur poses, Adobe selected a m ethod they call

tags. Users of Adobe System?s popular A crobat program m ay hav e noted the av ai labil i ty of a free

Make Accessible plug-in for A crobat 5 .0, w hich added tags to PDF conten t. A serious misnomer.

A dob e r en a m ed th e m en u it em for th is pl u g -in to A dd Ta g s t o Docu m en t in A cr oba t 6 .0 a fa r

m ore accu ra te, albeit less am bitious, description of its fun ction.

The Add Tags feature in Acrobat 6 .0, wh i le a dram atic im prov ement ov er i ts hapless predecessor,

w il l n on et h el ess dem on str a te to a ll bu t th e m ost ca su a l u ser th a t sim pl y a dd in g ta g s doe s n ot

ensur e com pliance w ith Section 5 08. I f it did, y ou can rest assur ed that Adobe would tru m pet the

new s far a nd w ide. In fact, th e term Section 5 08 does not appear in th e Acrobat Help fi le at all

need we say m ore?

Compliance is NOT a checkbox item

A t ta in in g Sec tion 5 08 com pl ia n ce in v olv es n u m er ou s polic y qu estion s r a n g in g fr om th e

dev elopm ent of altern ate text for im ages to the treatm ent of abbrev iations. The process of ensur ing

com pliance is rife w ith judgem ent calls, especially in ba lanc ing strict compliance ag ainst assur ed

usability a distinction w ith a sign ifican t cost differentia l.

Key Take-Aways

A ccessib il it y st a r ts w it h a u th or s.

Section 5 08 com pliance requires judgm ent a nd ch oices it is not a ch eckbox.

The degr ee of difficulty in assuring com pliance is a fun ction of both conten t an d lay out

complexi ty .

Disabled users don?t m easure accessibility , they m easure usability . Therefore, purely techn ical

com pliance w ith 5 08 is highly un likely to resolv e user com plaints .

The Make Accessible plug -in (th e A ccessibility Add Tag s to Docum ent m enu item in Ac robat

6.0 ) does not m ake a PDF com pliant w ith Section 5 08.

Neither the Accessibility Quick Check, nor the Ac cessibility Full Check in A crobat 6.0 ca n

v er ify com pl ia n ce w it h Se ction 5 08 .

First, the Good NewsMan y (possibly ev en m ost) PDF fi les ar e already larg ely compliant , and n eed little or n o furt her

w or k to bec om e fu ll y com pl ia n t . Th ese fi le s m a y be r ea di ly id en tif ied a s follow s:

Th e file consists of text (i.e., it is not just scann ed ima ges)


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Lay out s ar e extrem ely sim ple (i .e. , there are only one or tw o colum ns of text)

There are no images, and tables are very simple and relat ively sm all

Ev en if tag s are not present in such a PDF, Adobe Reader 6.0 will m ake som e fairly accu ra te

assum ptions regar ding text f low , at least.

A Caution

Note that w hi le such a docum ent m ay readi ly com ply, i t m ay not be especia l ly useable. After a l l , a

5 00-page docum ent m ay be com pliant without bookm arks, but i f desired content is on page 45 0,

then an assist iv e technology user ma y hav e to plow through each of the preceding 4 49 pages to get

there! We recom m end that ALL docum ents longer t han a few pages include bookm arks that m atch

the ta ble of conten ts and m ajor heading lev els for th is reason.

The Not-So-Good News: Alternate Text

Since Section 5 08 r equires a lternate text for each ima ge, i t i s logical that achiev ing compliance

should inv olv e the au thor, th e editor or at least the car etaker of the docum ent text . Who else is

supposed to come up w ith altern ate text for each im age? The gr aphic designer ? What is the alterna te

text for, say , a pie-cha rt, a ny how? It?s an editorial, actu ally a policy -lev el, question. With respect, i t

is em phatica lly NOT a question for gr aphic-designer s!

Ev en th ough i t?s un av oidably their r esponsibi li ty , docum ent a uth ors and editors are ty pical ly

un famil iar w ith the a lternate text r equirem ent. Ev en i f they?v e heard of i t , signi ficant education is

general ly necessary to foster an un derstanding of a lternate text , a nd especia l ly , how to make i t

useable. This is not, by the w ay , an issue solely for PDF. Im ages in any electronic docum ent form at,

HTML for exam ple, need altern ate text to com ply w ith Section 5 08.

Wh il e PDF d oes su pp or t a lter n a te tex t for di scr et e im a g es, th er e is st il l n o ea sy solu t ion for a ddin g

altern ate text to the im age conten ts of PDF/Search able Im age fi les, a com m on flav or of PDF created

from scanned docum ents. While I am aw ar e of at least two work-ar oun ds, neither a re readily

av ai lable via the Acr obat u ser- interface, and nei ther a re completely sat isfactory .

More Not-So-Good News: Tables

The Section 5 08 regu lations include tw o separat e prov isions on tables and for g ood reason.

Conceiv ed by and exclu siv ely for sighted u sers, tables are one of the m ost difficult content deliv ery

v eh ic le s t o m a ke a ccessib le . Im a g in e r em ov in g g r id li n es a n d cel ls to r ed u ce a ta ble to a st r ea m of

text , and y ou w i l l un derstand w hy . The Section 5 08 regu lat ion states that r ow a nd colum n headers

be iden t ifie d. Wh il e possib le , com pl ia n ce w it h th is r equ ir em en t w il l r equ ir e m a st er y of t h e Ta g s

palette in Acr obat 6 .0. To ensur e usability (a s opposed to m ere com pliance), docum ent au thors ma y

w ish to c on sid er u sin g n a r r a tiv es to del iv er in for m a tion th a t m ig h t oth er w ise h a v e im pl ied th e u se

of a ta ble.

Still More Not So Good News: Text Flow

The simple wa y to understan d text f low is to Sav e As y our PDF to an RTF fi le using A crobat 6.0 .

Open the resulting fi le in Word. You ar e now looking a t the text f low a disabled user would hav e to

conten d with . If you ca n?t m ake heads or ta i ls of the docum ent in th is fashion, then n either ca n

they . The ta gs in the PDF need m ore work.

Wh il e th e Sec t ion 5 08 r eg u la t ion s do n ot ex pl ic it ly sta te th a t tex t flow m u st m a ke sen se to t h e u ser

(tha t w ould im ply tha t usability w as the issue!), i t is reasona ble to assum e that disjointed or err atic

text f low v iolates the spirit of the r egula tion. Indeed, i f the t ext f low is so bad as to ma ke th e

docum ent u nreadable, then th e docum ent s im ply does not comply . Sadly , on m oderately com plex

docum ents, poor tex t-flow is gener ally the r ule, n ot th e exception.


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Conclusion

Wh et h er PDF, HTML, or som e oth er for m a t , su sta in ed com pl ia n ce w it h Se ction 5 08 r equ ir es a top-t o-

bottom r ev iew of t h e doc u m en t a u th or in g pr ocess. To best con tr ol com pl ia n ce cost s, doc u m en t

au thors mu st be trained in au thoring for docum ent accessibility , especially w ith respect to the

dev elopm ent of altern ate text . Gra phic designers m ust adopt policies that t end to reduce or

elimina te the featu res that inh ibit accessibility , such a s the use of color to deliv er inform ation, or

ov erly complex lay outs .

If act ive com pliance w ith Section 5 08 w ere to becom e routine rath er th an exceptional , i t w ould

demonstrat e laudable progress towar ds a gov ern m ent for a ll . In a ddition to serv ing disabled users,

ther e are other significan t benefits from en ha nced accessibility . Non-nativ e langu age speakers,

i lli tera te and learn ing-disabled users can all benefit from stru ctu red docum ents. Im prov ed

accessibility w ill enh an ce online inter actions and reduce the tim e requir ed to locate inform ation.

Docum ent stru ctu re h elps m ov e conten t towa rds other dev ices (phones, PDAs, etc) a significant

capabi li ty as the inform ation a ge m atur es.

Wh il e com pl ia n ce w it h Se ction 5 0 8 h a s b ee n m a n da tor y for Feder a l a g en cies a n d th ei r con tr a ctor s

since 2001 , both th e gov ernm ent that m akes the ru les and the electronic docum ent industry that

creat es the tools ha v e each only just begun to stir. PDF, for y ears, a v ital component in th e

governm ent docum ent infrastru ctur e, i s now able to m eet the chal lenge presented by Section 5 08.

It is up to the a ut hors, the designer s and the policy m akers to take the n ext step.

by Duff Johnso n

A ssist iv e Tec h n olog y , Se ct ion 5 0 8 , Un iv er sa l A ccessibi lit y
http://talkingpdf.org/tag/universal-accessibility/http://talkingpdf.org/tag/section-508/http://talkingpdf.org/tag/assistive-technology/

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How to Make Your s Compliant With Section 508