Federal Regulations
Title III: General Provisions
13. Advertisements, Commercial_No Government publication or Government
printed matter, prepared or produced with either appropriated or
non-appropriated funds or identified with an activity of the Government,
shall contain any advertisement inserted by or for any private individual,
firm, or corporation; or contain material which implies in any manner that
the Government endorses or favors any specific commercial product, commodity,
or service.
The Committee is of the opinion that commercial advertising is not a proper
or authorized function of the Government. Such advertisements are unfair
to those who do not so advertise in that, whether intentionally or not,
they are frequently made to appear to have the sanction of the Government.
Furthermore, the publication of such advertisements is unjust to the public
in that the advertisers profit thereby at the expense of the Government,
particularly as a considerable number of the publications are circulated free,
at least in part, under Government frank. Advertising in Government
publications is also unfair to the publishers of other periodicals in that
they generally cannot meet such competition, owing to the great advantage
possessed by a Government publication. Another reason for objecting
is that advertisers are apt to use Government periodicals for the purpose
of currying favor with the officers issuing the same or the special class
among whom such publications are circulated. This is a temptation that the
Government ought not to encourage.
Government Printing & Binding Regulations Published by the Joint Committee on
Printing Congress of the United States February 1990
Section 508
In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information
technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information
technology for people with disabilities. The law applies to all federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain,
or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508, agencies must give disabled employees and members of
the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.
Before reading these federal requirements, it may be helpful to read "Disabilities
and internet use".
Listed below are the Section 508 guidelines as they apply to web-based intranet and internet applications. Additionally
the Federal Requirements contain a section on video and multimedia products (§ 1194.14). The mandates
themselves are vague, so we attempted to elaborate on some of the items, please see the italicized sections below each item for
additional information.
For addittional information on web accessibility, please read The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. These guidelines, developed by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, explain how to make web content accessible to people with disabilities.
Section 1194.22 Web-based intranet and internet information and applications
- A text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or
in element content).
Non-text elements such as photographs, icons and other graphics need to contain a text
description. Also, this provision requires that when an image is used to represent page content, the image must have
a text description accompanying it that explains the meaning of the image. Commonly, the "ALT" attribute is used to provide a text description of a non-text
element. An example HTML source code example is <img src="usaid.gif" alt="USAID Logo">.
- Equivalent alternatives for any multimedia presentation shall be synchronized with the presentation.
Multimedia files that include videos, audio and flash need to provide alternate text. This
can be accomplished by providing synchronized captions. Synchronized captioning allows someone to read
the captions or watch the speaker and associate relevant body language with the speech. Text-based transcripts are an acceptable
alternative for audio presentations but should not be used as an alternative for multimedia presentations that contain audio and video.
- Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color,
for example from context or markup.
This provision means that when color is used to emphasize important information you should
also use some type of non-color indicator, such as an asterisk (*) or other symbol. Also, when designing a page, remember to
use colors that provide good contrast. A good way to test for good contrast is to print a test page on a black and white printer.
- Documents shall be organized so they are readable without requiring an associated style sheet.
The safest and most useful form of style sheets is to use "external" style sheets, in which the style rules are
set up in a separate file as opposed to using internal style codes. Some users may set up their own user-defined style
sheets to be able to view pages and to compensate
for their disabilities. Style sheets are typically used for color,indentation and other presentation effects. When
a page that utilizes a style sheet is turned off, it should still be readable and understandable. If information is missing or
information is confusing, then the style sheet should be updated.
- Redundant text links shall be provided for each active regions of a server-side map.
You should be able to accomplish most of your image maps on the client-side; however,
if a server-side image map is used you must provide separate text links outside of the server-side image map that allows the
same access to the image map hotspots.
- Client-side image maps shall be provided instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be
defined with an available geometric shape.
This provision suggests that you should not use a server-side image map if a client side image map will suffice.
Also, remember to use the "alt" attribute to describe all non-text elements.
- Row and column headers shall be identified for data tables.
Data tables must have the column and row headers properly identified, using the <th> tag
- Markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical
levels of row or column headers.
Table cells should be associated with the appropriate headers, i.e with the use of "scope"
or "id" tag. See Creating Accessible tables for more information
- Frames shall be titled with text that facilitates frame identification and navigation.
Note:
USAID has an existing policy against the use of frames which subsumes this requirement.
- Pages shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2
Hz and lower than 55 Hz.
Some graphics or video presentations can flicker at very high rates (an example may be a banner ad that is
trying to get your attention) and can induce optical seizures in some individuals with photosensitive epilepsy.
- A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a web site comply
with the provisions of this part, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content
of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes.
If, for some reason, you cannot make your site content accessible, you must provide a text-only version.
The text-only version should be the functional equivalent of the "main" version and should be updated with the "main" version.
This means you must provide text equivalents for any component that is not accessible in the "main" site.
- When pages utilize scripting languages to display content, or to create interface elements, the information
provided by the script shall be identified with functional text that can be read by assistive technology.
When scripts, such as javascript, are used on a page it must be able to be detected by a browser
with assistive technology. Providing keyboard accessibility is a good measure of this. Also, information within the
scripts should be text-based, if they are not, then a text alternative should be supplied.
- When a web page requires that an applet, plug-in or other application be present on the client system to
interpret page content, the page must provide a link to a plug-in or applet that complies with §1194.21(a)
through (l).
The Adobe Acrobat reader is an example of a typical plug-in. If you provide PDF files on your
site, then you must provide a link so that the Acrobat Reader can be downloaded.
Note: USAID has an existing policy against the use of applets which partially subsume this
requirement. Content providers for the USAID site should provide links to Adobe Reader at
http://www.adobe.com/readstep.html on all pages that have links to PDF files. According to the comments about
this section of the regulations, "This provision places a responsibility on the web page author to know that
a compliant application exists, before requiring a plug-in." In addition, content providers should provide
descriptive text and file size of any downloadable documents that indicates the format of the document and
approximate download time. This will allow the user to ensure that it is a format type they will be able to open
once downloaded and that the download will not tie-up their machine for an unacceptable period of time.
- When electronic forms are designed to be completed on-line, the form shall allow people using assistive
technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required for completion and submission of
the form, including all directions and cues
Note: In conjunction with this requirement, USAID will start to require that when a web page
contains dropdown boxes, radio buttons, checkboxes or similar functionality coded in HTML, the author of the page
provide the following text alerting the user of those features. It has been found that various screen readers and
browsers interpret these features differently. In order to alert the user that these features are on the page,
the following text should be provided:
"This page contains [dropdown boxes, radio buttons, checkboxes] which may be ignored
by some forms of web browsing technology. In these cases, this information can be accessed by using the keyboard
instead of the mouse (i.e.: Tab key, Enter key, Arrow keys, Spacebar, etc.)."
USAID Developers should not use select options that will automatically send a user to a
page upon selection. Provide the user with a "submit" button that will allow them to confirm a selection once
made.
- A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.
The USAID site currently provides a method to skip the top navigation bar using white
text above the links. Content providers should consider using a second option to skip redundant or repetitive
left-hand navigation that will allow users to skip over the links in the left-hand navigation to the content of
the page on the right. See "Skipping Repetitive Navigation" for more information.
- When a timed response is required, the user shall be alerted and given sufficient time to indicate more time
is required.
The user should not be required to act quickly, within a restricted time period. Alerting a user via a prompt box is an acceptable
alternative as opposed to a timeout or page expiration.
Section 1194.14 Video and Multimedia Products
- All training and multimedia productions which support the agency’s mission, regardless of format, that
contain speech or other audio information necessary for the comprehension of the content shall be open or closed
captioned.
- All training and informational video and multimedia productions which support the agency’s mission, regardless
of format, that contain visual information necessary for the comprehension of the content, shall be audio described.
- Display or presentation of alternate text presentation or audio descriptions shall be user-selectable unless
permanent.
This will affect any multimedia that is posted to the USAID web site from this point forward.
The intent of the regulation is to provide simultaneous access to whatever alternate mode the user requires.
For example, when a deaf user is watching a video, that user should have access to simultaneous captions rather than a script
that exists on another page.
Helpful Hints and other information
- Currently the tag "longdesc" is not fully browser supported, use the "alt" tag instead.
- Text-only and accessible are not synonymous terms. Text-only sites are not always helpful to those with
- At this time, many elements of client-side scripting, such as JavaScript, cannot be made directly accessible to
assistive technologies and keyboards. An example is the use of the "onMouseOver" command. If the scripted event reveals important
information, then some type of keyboard alternative is required.
- At this time, it is recommended that HTML versions of PDF files be included as an alternative. Acrobat reader 5.0 allows
screen readers to access PDF documents; however, Not all users have this version installed. Also, some PDF documents may not be
text-based.
- PowerPoint files are not currently directly accessible unless the user has a full version of the PowerPoint program. It is
recommended that an accessible HTML version be provided as well.
Section 508 Links
Access-Board.Gov
Section 508 Guidelines
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
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