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Getting 508 compliance right is a bigger deal than you might think. It’s not just for federal agencies. If you sell to the government, your content must be 508 compliant. But the conversation around 508 accessibility compliance is growing everywhere. We recently hosted a webinar on this topic with our friends at DCL and the questions poured in. It’s clear that many of you are working through the same challenges. To help, we’ve gathered the most frequently asked questions and provided clear, actionable answers below.
What is Section 508 Compliance?
At its core, Section 508 is a federal law that requires government agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. It’s about ensuring everyone has equal access to the information and digital tools provided by the government. This isn't just a friendly suggestion; it's a legal requirement that directly impacts how federal agencies develop, purchase, and use technology. For any organization that works with the federal government, understanding these requirements is a critical part of the partnership, especially when it comes to technical documentation and user support content.
What the Law Covers
Section 508 is an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Its purpose is straightforward: to eliminate barriers in information technology for people with disabilities. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the law ensures that "federal government technology is usable by people with disabilities. This includes both federal employees and the public." The term "technology" is intentionally broad, covering everything from websites and software applications to hardware and electronic documents. The ultimate goal is to remove obstacles that might prevent someone with a visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive disability from accessing and using government information effectively.
Who Must Comply with Section 508
The mandate is clear for all federal bodies. As the U.S. Department of Transportation states, "All government agencies must follow Section 508. This law applies to all federal agencies that develop, procure, maintain, or use information and communications technology (ICT)." This requirement also extends to any private company that sells products or services to a federal agency. If your technical documentation, training materials, or user guides are part of a product sold to the government, that content must be 508 compliant. This makes accessibility a key business requirement for many organizations in the private sector.
The Role of the U.S. Access Board
To ensure the law keeps pace with technological advancements, a specific body is in charge of the details. "The US Access Board creates the specific rules and standards for Section 508." This independent federal agency is responsible for developing and maintaining the accessibility standards that all federal agencies and their vendors must follow. The Access Board provides the detailed technical requirements that give Section 508 its teeth, translating the law's broad principles into actionable guidelines for developers, content creators, and procurement specialists to implement.
Understanding the Core Accessibility Standards
Achieving Section 508 compliance isn't about checking off a vague list of tasks. Instead, it’s about adhering to a well-defined framework designed to make digital content accessible to everyone. The standards for Section 508 are directly tied to the internationally recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These guidelines provide a comprehensive set of principles and success criteria that have become the global standard for web accessibility, offering a clear path for creating content that serves a wider range of people with disabilities, including those who rely on assistive technologies.
The POUR Principles of Accessibility
The entire framework of WCAG is built on a foundation of four key principles. As the accessibility experts at Accessibe explain, "WCAG is built on four main ideas: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust." These principles, often referred to by the acronym POUR, serve as the pillars of digital accessibility. They provide a high-level structure for understanding what it takes to create an inclusive digital experience, guiding everything from design choices to the underlying code of a website or document. Let's break down what each one means in practice.
Perceivable
For information to be useful, users must be able to perceive it. This principle means that "users can understand the information (they can see, hear, or touch it)." This involves providing text alternatives for images, creating captions for videos, and designing content in a way that it can be presented in different formats—like a simpler layout or speech—without losing its meaning or structure.
Operable
Users must be able to interact with the interface and navigation. The Operable principle ensures that "users can use the website (e.g., with a keyboard)." This means all functions should be accessible without a mouse, users should have sufficient time to read and use content, and the design should not include elements that could cause seizures or other physical reactions.
Understandable
It’s not enough for users to perceive and operate a site; they must also be able to understand it. The Understandable principle dictates that "the content is clear and easy to follow." This is achieved by using clear language, providing predictable and consistent navigation, and offering features that help users avoid and correct mistakes, such as clear error messages.
Robust
Content needs to be compatible with current and future technologies. The Robust principle ensures that "the website works well with different technologies, including assistive tools." This means using clean code that follows established standards so that it can be reliably interpreted by various web browsers and assistive technologies like screen readers, now and in the future.
Meeting WCAG 2.0 Level AA Standards
Section 508 doesn't just reference WCAG; it specifies a particular level of conformance. "Since 2018, Section 508 uses the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 AA as its standard." Level AA is the middle tier of compliance and is widely adopted as the benchmark for accessibility in legislation around the world. Maintaining this standard across thousands of pages of technical documentation can be a significant challenge. This is where structured content like DITA provides a major advantage. By authoring content in a component-based system, you can apply accessibility rules at the source, ensuring every topic, procedure, and concept meets the standard before it’s ever published.
508 Compliance Examples
The principles of WCAG translate into specific, practical actions. Common examples of compliance include "striking sufficient color contrast between text and its background, using legible and readable fonts, avoiding seizure-inducing elements, adding alt text to meaningful images, and providing captions to videos." When you're creating structured content, you can build these requirements directly into your authoring workflow. For instance, a system like Heretto can make fields for alt text mandatory for every image, removing the risk of human error. This approach turns compliance into a systematic part of your content operations, not a final, frantic cleanup before delivery.
How can you be sure you're in compliance with Section 508?
The number one way to ensure you're compliant would be to hire a third-party firm to do an audit of your content. That is also the best way to gain certifications such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance level grade. WebAIM.org (Web Accessibility in Mind) is a terrific site for this. You will find a number of resources, including access to third-party auditors who will review your content. One thing to remember when seeking 508 compliance is simplicity. Unnecessary complexity on your website will make navigation more difficult for all of your users. Simplicity also applies to authoring and publishing your content. Develop simplified workflows to reduce the opportunities for things to fall through the cracks. Automation is your ally in this area. Heretto’s publishing plugin lets you automatically ensure that your content is styled in a compliant manner when published. In addition to finding third-party auditors, WebAIM.org has a number of excellent resources to aid in your compliance efforts, such as their contrast checker, 508 compliance checklist, and the WAVE reader.
Testing for Compliance
Beyond simplifying your content and workflows, you need a solid testing strategy. The most effective way to meet Section 508 rules is often by working with a company that specializes in digital accessibility. These experts can perform a detailed audit of your content and digital tools, identify any issues, and guide you through the remediation process to ensure you remain compliant. For more immediate feedback, you can use automated tools for a quick scan to catch common problems. However, for a comprehensive review that includes manual testing and expert analysis, hiring accessibility specialists is the best path forward. This two-pronged approach—combining automated checks with expert audits—gives you both a quick pulse-check and a deep, reliable assessment of your compliance status.
Proving Compliance with a VPAT
Once you've done the work to make your content accessible, you need a way to prove it, especially if you're selling to government agencies. This is where the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, or VPAT, comes in. A VPAT is a formal document that details how your product or service conforms to accessibility standards like Section 508. Think of it as a report card for your product's accessibility. Companies complete this template to show their level of compliance for each standard, which federal agencies then use during the procurement process to evaluate different vendors. Having a clear and accurate VPAT is essential for demonstrating your commitment to accessibility and can be a key differentiator when competing for government contracts.
How does one decide when to remediate PDF files as opposed to reverting to DITA?
It depends on a few factors, namely:
- What publishing outputs and file types
- How many documents
- What languages you publish to
If your organization only publishes PDF documents and they need to be made available in a short period of time, remediation is probably the better choice. On the other hand, if you have documents that are regularly edited and will be published repeatedly or to multiple outputs, then I think the best way to preserve the asset value of your documents would be to convert them into a structured format such as DITA. You should also consider multilingual and multi-channel publishing requirements. In both cases, DITA offers significant value and efficiencies. Both are common motivators for companies to make the jump to structured authoring. Since you can keep multiple language formats in sync and you can use translation memory to minimize the cost of translation.
The Challenge with Document Remediation
The scope of Section 508 is broader than many people realize. According to Section508.gov, the law “requires federal agencies to ensure their Information and Communication Technology (ICT)—including websites, documents, software, and hardware—is accessible to people with disabilities.” This doesn’t just apply to the agencies themselves. The US Department of Veterans Affairs clarifies that “Any content that the federal government buys or uses must meet Section 508 standards.” For technical documentation teams, this often means that PDFs and other digital documents must be fully compliant. This creates a significant challenge for organizations that rely on traditional, unstructured authoring methods, where accessibility is often an afterthought.
This is where the costly cycle of document remediation begins. Remediation is the process of manually fixing existing, non-compliant files to meet accessibility standards. It’s a reactive approach that treats the symptom, not the cause. Each time a document is updated, the entire remediation process must be repeated, draining time and resources. For teams managing hundreds or thousands of documents, this becomes an unsustainable and expensive bottleneck. It turns compliance into a constant cleanup project rather than an integrated part of the content lifecycle, making it nearly impossible to scale effectively or ensure consistent quality across all materials.
Building Accessible Content with Structured Authoring
A more sustainable strategy is to shift from reactive remediation to proactive design. Instead of fixing accessibility issues after publication, you build accessibility into the content from the very beginning. The US EPA defines this as digital accessibility: designing content so people with disabilities can easily use and understand it. This approach integrates compliance directly into your authoring workflow. By focusing on creating accessible source content, you ensure that any output you generate—whether it’s a PDF, a website, or a help portal—is born compliant, eliminating the need for costly, repetitive fixes down the line.
This is where structured authoring provides a powerful advantage. Using a standard like DITA XML, you create content with semantic tags that define its meaning and purpose, separating it from presentation. This inherent structure makes the content inherently machine-readable and adaptable. When you use a Component Content Management System (CCMS) to manage this content, you can automate the process of publishing fully compliant outputs that meet the WCAG 2.0 AA standards required by Section 508. Accessibility becomes a repeatable, scalable part of your process, not a manual checklist item you have to worry about with every release.
Why are private companies getting sued over accessibility issues?
In the same way that the American Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that public spaces need to be physically accessible to people, private lawsuits are made on the grounds that public, online content needs to be accessible to people. For example, a movie theatre needs wheelchair accessible seating, ramps, and elevators. Just like a physical theatre, companies like Netflix must provide closed captioning to accommodate individuals with disabilities. Do you still have questions? Leave a comment below and we'll be sure to give you our best answer.
Interested in learning more about how Heretto as a content management system can aid your pursuit of section 508 compliance? Request a demo to see if your situation is a good fit for Heretto.
The Consequences of Non-Compliance
Failing to meet Section 508 standards isn't just a misstep; it carries significant legal and financial risks. The law is enforceable, and organizations that don't comply can face serious repercussions. According to research from Level Access, "Federal agencies can be sued if their digital tools are not accessible. Some agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration, have faced lawsuits." These legal challenges can result in costly settlements and mandated remediation efforts, diverting resources from other critical projects. Beyond the direct financial impact, non-compliance can damage an organization's reputation and erode public trust, making it clear that a proactive approach to accessibility is a core part of responsible content governance.
Section 508 vs. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
It's common to see Section 508 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mentioned together, but they serve different functions. The key distinction lies in their scope. As Level Access clarifies, "Section 508 is a specific federal law for federal agencies and their vendors, focusing on digital accessibility. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is a broader anti-discrimination law that covers physical spaces but has also been applied to digital spaces by courts." In short, Section 508 sets the technical standards for federal information technology. The ADA, a broader civil rights law, has been legally interpreted to require private sector websites—as places of "public accommodation"—to be accessible, which is why private companies face accessibility lawsuits.
State-Level Accessibility Laws
Compliance doesn't stop at the federal level. Many states have enacted their own accessibility laws that can affect both public and private organizations. While Section 508 applies directly to federal entities, its influence extends further. Level Access notes, "While Section 508 is a federal law, it might affect state agencies, and many states have their own digital accessibility laws." This creates a complex regulatory landscape where organizations may need to adhere to federal, state, and even local requirements. Keeping track of these varied standards underscores the importance of a centralized and structured approach to managing your content, ensuring that all published materials meet the necessary guidelines, regardless of jurisdiction.
Official Resources for Section 508 Compliance
Navigating the requirements for Section 508 compliance can feel overwhelming, but you don't have to do it alone. Several official and highly respected resources are available to provide guidance, tools, and training. The primary source for any federal agency or vendor should be Section508.gov. This is the official government website dedicated to the law, offering comprehensive information directly from the source. It's the best place to find the latest standards, checklists, and training materials to ensure your information and communication technology (ICT) is accessible to individuals with disabilities. Think of it as your foundational resource for understanding the letter of the law and its direct application.
For more hands-on tools and practical guidance, WebAIM.org (Web Accessibility In Mind) is an invaluable resource. As mentioned earlier, the site offers a wealth of information, including a widely used Section 508 compliance checklist, a color contrast checker to test readability, and the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. These tools help you move from theory to practice by identifying specific issues within your content. Using these resources can streamline your auditing process, but a truly efficient workflow embeds accessibility from the start. By using a platform that supports structured authoring, you can build compliance directly into your templates and automate checks before you even publish, making these external tools a final check rather than a constant necessity.
Key Takeaways
- Compliance is a business imperative, not just a guideline: Section 508 legally requires federal vendors to meet WCAG 2.0 AA standards, while the ADA creates similar expectations for private companies. Treating accessibility as a core requirement helps mitigate significant legal and financial risks.
- Shift from reactive fixes to proactive design: Instead of relying on the costly, repetitive process of fixing non-compliant PDFs, use structured authoring to build accessibility into your content from the source. This approach makes compliance a scalable and sustainable part of your workflow.
- Validate your work and document it formally: A complete compliance strategy combines automated tools with expert audits for thorough testing. To satisfy procurement requirements, use a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) to clearly report how your products conform to accessibility standards.
