Recovery.gov is routinely tested for compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. For more information on Section 508, visit www.section508.gov.
Prior to the launch of Recovery.gov 2.0, one-on-one sessions were conducted with perception- and motor-impaired participants to identify and correct any accessibility barriers. These usability sessions are conducted on an ongoing basis to ensure that all changes made to Recovery.gov 2.0 are 508 compliant. The site is also reviewed on a monthly basis using Watchfire WebXM to identify instances that fail to meet one or more of Section 508's 16 compliance standards. PDF files are reviewed manually to ensure they meet the same standards. For information on making Adobe PDFs accessible, visit www.adobe.com/accessibility.
To help visually impaired users more easily distinguish content, contrast and color schemes are tested regularly using tools such as http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ and http://juicystudio.com/services/luminositycontrastratio.php. For blind users, the site is evaluated on a monthly basis using Jaws to check the accuracy and quality of the content and navigation. Techniques, such as providing methods for skipping repetitive navigation and avoiding non-distinct link labels, in addition to proper header tags, alternate text and table headers, have been implemented throughout the site and are reviewed frequently.
In addition, the following have been incorporated throughout the site:
- Text equivalents provided for non-text elements
- Closed captioning available for multimedia presentations
- Text versions supplied for flash maps
- Colored information made available without color
- Documents can be read without a style sheet
- Data table rows and column headers are identified as data tables
- Scope attributes are assigned to associate data cells and header cells for data tables with two or more logical levels of rows or column headers
- Frames are titled with text
- Design avoids screen flicker with a frequency greater than 2 HZ and lower than 55 Hz.
- Text only versions of data provided where needed to comply with Section 508 standards
- Information provided by scripting languages is identified with text that can be read by assistive technology
- Information and functionality are available with JavaScript enabled and made available where necessary
- Links are provided to required plug-ins
- Forms are formatted to work with assistive technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required to complete and submit forms
Contact Us if you have any difficult accessing information on Recovery.gov.