Why Section 508 Compliance Testing Must Be Prioritized
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Introduction to Section 508
Section 508 is a 1998 amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that establishes the legal framework for 508 compliant ICT products and services procurable by federal and federally funded organizations. All federal and federally funded organizations are subject to the accessibility standards associated with Section 508. The federally funded organizations include those entities that provide educational services, healthcare services, financial services, and services in other spheres.
Apart from federal and federally funded organizations, most businesses are nowadays striving to create online content that enhances their brands’ Section 508 compliance. Any business that deals with digital products or services must adhere to the established accessibility standards for the content they share on their websites and the final product they share with their clients. This is not just helpful for the target audiences but holds a plethora of benefits for the business.
Being Section 508 compliant helps a business to avoid unnecessary lawsuits, build its brand, increase its customer base, save costs, improve its search engine optimization (SEO), improve its user experience, enhance its opportunities for partnership with federal organizations, and better innovate because continual Section 508 compliance testing helps in the discovery of interesting insights that can help products and services.
What is covered under Section 508?
Section 508 covers many types of communications and technologies, including computer software and hardware, mobile applications, websites, PDFs, kiosks, videos, multimedia, and other digital content.
Failure to remove barriers of access from any of these communications and technologies, as well as from other digital communications covered under Section 508, will mean that your business is violating Section 508 compliance requirements, restricting customers’ ability to get important information, and preventing them from being independent.
How you should conduct your Section 508 compliance testing
There are several approaches to testing your product or service’s Section 508 compliance, but not all of them are equally reliable. It is therefore your duty to know which of the approaches will help you deliver the level of 508 compliance you desire for your digital product or service.
Although it could be challenging for you or your team to evaluate each document that your business provides to the public, many businesses tend to overlook compliance issues that end up predisposing their products or services to legal risks. Section 508 demands that an entire product or service be 508 compliant and not just a portion of it. That is why working with a 508 compliance checklist helps to avoid overlooking compliance issues in a product or service during compliance testing.
Alternatively, you can test for 508 compliance using an online Section 508 compliance tester. 508 compliance testers are testing software that analyses and assesses websites and material made available online. A good 508 compliance tester will give you suggestions on how to address the accessibility problems identified on your website or online property.
The approach of using a 508 compliance tester for your Section 508 compliance testing is, however, not always dependable. That is because the content might be changed, rendering the assessment report ineffective. There are, however, assurances that if the assessment report’s text is comprehensive and in the right reading order, the online 508 compliance tester is more dependable than an audit conducted internally.
The best approach toward delivering Section 508 compliance is to partner with a trusted accessibility expert like ADACP. Working together, you and the accessibility expert can create an effective plan on how to achieve and maintain 508 compliance.
Reasons why Section 508 compliance testing should concern you
More and more people, including people with disabilities, are using digital tools nowadays due to the expanding significance of digital technology and apps. Section 508 compliance testing is therefore important toward ensuring that these tools are usable by individuals with a range of skills. Whether you are a vendor, manufacturer, or user of a digital tool or technology, 508 compliance testing should be a concern to you because of the following reasons:
- Increased customer experience opportunity
Section 508 compliance testing guaranteesequitable access to a business’ products or services for all customers. It is a way of helping defend the rights of all users of a digital product or service and assisting them in preserving their independence through conformance to Section 508 compliance requirements. Deliveringincreased user experience opportunities through 508 compliance testing requires the choice of a reliable accessibility partner to help with the testing.
- Increased user base
Early Section 508 compliance testing increases user reach for products and services. When digital properties like websites are not effectively tested for Section 508 compliance, they could harbour accessibility issues that make them inaccessible to people with certain types of disabilities. Excluding some users from a product or service reduces the product or service’s user base.
508 compliance testing should be an integral part of any strategy process for digital product or service design and development. It should also be timely, because delayed testing can lead to software bugs and higher costs.
- Legal compliance
Section 508 compliance testing can help businesses avoid a host of legal tangles and penalties because it provides insights into what issues to fix in the digital product or service to make it 508 compliant.
- Improved code quality
Testing for Section 508 compliance can broaden the scope of usability testing and produce high quality codebases for the final goods or services. The capacity of the testing tools to find coding faults that may otherwise result in usability problems or software bugs is typically primarily responsible for this.
- Improved search engine optimization
Section 508 compliance testing helps to deliver accessibility-friendly websites that contain rich text content that enables search engines to find them while looking up relevant content easily. Search engines are more likely to provide more traffic to a website with a higher search engine optimization (SEO) score, which drives more traffic to the site and increases revenue and conversions.
Section 508 compliance testing also helps create applications and websites with simpler interfaces and navigation. This reduces bounce rates and encourages more users to see such websites or apps regularly.
Need help with Section 508 compliance testing for your digital product?
ADACP is a leading Section 508 compliance testing service provider and has partnered with major brands to make their digital products and services 508 compliant. We are happy to assist you in testing your digital product or service for 508 compliance. For more information about how we can assist you, call us at (626) 486-2201 today to schedule aconsultation.
Introduction to Section 508
Section 508 is a 1998 amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that establishes the legal framework for 508 compliant ICT products and services procurable by federal and federally funded organizations. All federal and federally funded organizations are subject to the accessibility standards associated with Section 508. The federally funded organizations include those entities that provide educational services, healthcare services, financial services, and services in other spheres.
Apart from federal and federally funded organizations, most businesses are nowadays striving to create online content that enhances their brands’ Section 508 compliance. Any business that deals with digital products or services must adhere to the established accessibility standards for the content they share on their websites and the final product they share with their clients. This is not just helpful for the target audiences but holds a plethora of benefits for the business.
Being Section 508 compliant helps a business to avoid unnecessary lawsuits, build its brand, increase its customer base, save costs, improve its search engine optimization (SEO), improve its user experience, enhance its opportunities for partnership with federal organizations, and better innovate because continual Section 508 compliance testing helps in the discovery of interesting insights that can help products and services.
What is covered under Section 508?
Section 508 covers many types of communications and technologies, including computer software and hardware, mobile applications, websites, PDFs, kiosks, videos, multimedia, and other digital content.
Failure to remove barriers of access from any of these communications and technologies, as well as from other digital communications covered under Section 508, will mean that your business is violating Section 508 compliance requirements, restricting customers’ ability to get important information, and preventing them from being independent.
How you should conduct your Section 508 compliance testing
There are several approaches to testing your product or service’s Section 508 compliance, but not all of them are equally reliable. It is therefore your duty to know which of the approaches will help you deliver the level of 508 compliance you desire for your digital product or service.
Although it could be challenging for you or your team to evaluate each document that your business provides to the public, many businesses tend to overlook compliance issues that end up predisposing their products or services to legal risks. Section 508 demands that an entire product or service be 508 compliant and not just a portion of it. That is why working with a 508 compliance checklist helps to avoid overlooking compliance issues in a product or service during compliance testing.
Alternatively, you can test for 508 compliance using an online Section 508 compliance tester. 508 compliance testers are testing software that analyses and assesses websites and material made available online. A good 508 compliance tester will give you suggestions on how to address the accessibility problems identified on your website or online property.
The approach of using a 508 compliance tester for your Section 508 compliance testing is, however, not always dependable. That is because the content might be changed, rendering the assessment report ineffective. There are, however, assurances that if the assessment report’s text is comprehensive and in the right reading order, the online 508 compliance tester is more dependable than an audit conducted internally.
The best approach toward delivering Section 508 compliance is to partner with a trusted accessibility expert like ADACP. Working together, you and the accessibility expert can create an effective plan on how to achieve and maintain 508 compliance.
Reasons why Section 508 compliance testing should concern you
More and more people, including people with disabilities, are using digital tools nowadays due to the expanding significance of digital technology and apps. Section 508 compliance testing is therefore important toward ensuring that these tools are usable by individuals with a range of skills. Whether you are a vendor, manufacturer, or user of a digital tool or technology, 508 compliance testing should be a concern to you because of the following reasons:
- Increased customer experience opportunity
Section 508 compliance testing guaranteesequitable access to a business’ products or services for all customers. It is a way of helping defend the rights of all users of a digital product or service and assisting them in preserving their independence through conformance to Section 508 compliance requirements. Deliveringincreased user experience opportunities through 508 compliance testing requires the choice of a reliable accessibility partner to help with the testing.
- Increased user base
Early Section 508 compliance testing increases user reach for products and services. When digital properties like websites are not effectively tested for Section 508 compliance, they could harbour accessibility issues that make them inaccessible to people with certain types of disabilities. Excluding some users from a product or service reduces the product or service’s user base.
508 compliance testing should be an integral part of any strategy process for digital product or service design and development. It should also be timely, because delayed testing can lead to software bugs and higher costs.
- Legal compliance
Section 508 compliance testing can help businesses avoid a host of legal tangles and penalties because it provides insights into what issues to fix in the digital product or service to make it 508 compliant.
- Improved code quality
Testing for Section 508 compliance can broaden the scope of usability testing and produce high quality codebases for the final goods or services. The capacity of the testing tools to find coding faults that may otherwise result in usability problems or software bugs is typically primarily responsible for this.
- Improved search engine optimization
Section 508 compliance testing helps to deliver accessibility-friendly websites that contain rich text content that enables search engines to find them while looking up relevant content easily. Search engines are more likely to provide more traffic to a website with a higher search engine optimization (SEO) score, which drives more traffic to the site and increases revenue and conversions.
Section 508 compliance testing also helps create applications and websites with simpler interfaces and navigation. This reduces bounce rates and encourages more users to see such websites or apps regularly.
Need help with Section 508 compliance testing for your digital product?
ADACP is a leading Section 508 compliance testing service provider and has partnered with major brands to make their digital products and services 508 compliant. We are happy to assist you in testing your digital product or service for 508 compliance. For more information about how we can assist you, call us at (626) 486-2201 today to schedule aconsultation.
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