Web accessibility and Section 508

Inclusion is one of our agency Strategic Plan Goals and includes both internal and external customers.

In Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act , state agencies that receive federal funds are to provide accessible websites and is reinforced by Policy 188 of the Office of Chief Information Officer for the State of Washington.

Your role in accessibility

As a government agency, we serve all citizens in our state If you post documents to WSDOT's website. More than 20 percent of adults in Washington have some type of disability, and many more have some ties to someone living with one. Whether it's permanent, such as color blindness, or temporary, such as a broken arm in a sling, it's important that our website is easy to adjust for those who need to customize their experience.

Examples

The Web Accessibility Initiative put together Stories of Web Users and Web Accessibility Perspectives videos showcasing some of the difficulties web users may come across. Anyone should be able to access an item on our site, regardless of the main audience of the content.

Images and graphics

We work hard to create informative and interesting content to share with the public. However, a reliance on static images or content not customizable can take away from a visitor's experience. It's important to ensure that content like presentations, posters and graphics are not just placed onto our website without planning on making this accessible. Visuals should always have a purpose to add to the story on the page and never used to "break up text."

Only high quality images or graphics should be put onto our Flickr site. If a presentation needs to be on the site, do not save it as a PDF and upload it to the site. Instead, use the already great headings and info to tell the story on a webpage. 

Examples of presentations and folios turned webpages:

Learn how to make accessible documents

The easiest way to make information accessible is to keep it simple. Web pages are easier for tools that change color contrast, size or read material aloud than if the information is stuck in graphic or PDF form. 

If you are asked to provide information in a more accessible format, the following tools and instructions are available to help you. You may also contact our Web Help Team for assistance on providing it in a HTML format.

  • Make your Word documents accessible
    Microsoft's step-by-step instructions and videos on how to make your Word documents accessible to people with disabilities.
     
  • Make you PowerPoint presentations accessible
    Microsoft's step-by-step instructions and videos on how to make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to people with disabilities.
     
  • Make your PDFs accessible
  • Prepare InDesign files for accessibility 
    If you use InDesign, watch Adobe's video presentation on how to prepare your files.
     
  • Learning Management System (WSDOT employees only)
    Search for "WA-State Create More Accessible" in the LMS Course Catalog to find guided e-classes on how to make Microsoft products, including emails, more accessible. The class "Introduction to Web Accessibility" through LMS is another great way to experience how those with disabilities navigate a site and how to help them successfully find what they need.
https://wsdot.wa.gov/communications/web-toolkit/standards/accessibility
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