What Do You Mean, Accessibility In Mind?

“Accessibility In Mind”  means thinking about accessibility EARLY in the production process. We work with our clients to create procedures that reduce the time and cost of remediation. Using best practices can save 25-50% on post-production needs, so we like to be involved as early as possible, reviewing drafts, so we can help you understand the remediation process and how a few basic steps can make it go smoothly and quickly.

All AIM-remediated PDFs are guaranteed compliant with Section 508, and with the new “ICT Refresh”, following the specifications of PDF/UA-1 (ISO Standard 14289),  as specifically referenced in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Standards and Guidelines (updated Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, January 18,2018

The AIM Difference:

#1: Accessibility In Mind is a dedicated Section 508 and PDF/UA compliance service.

We are not a design/print house that does remediation on the side- remediating PDF documents, making them accessible and compliant, is our ONLY service.  Find the home page of our competitors if you want to know what their main business is, then come back to AIM for your Section 508 work!

#2: We are not a middle-man, taking a commission and passing the work on to contractors.

When you work with AIM you are dealing DIRECTLY with Section 508 expert remediators, and paying less– often 30-50% less– than through other vendors. Deal direct, SAVE TIME AND MONEY!

Do You Feel Section 508 Refreshed? The New ICT Rules Are in Effect

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In January 2017, the U.S. Access Board issued the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Standards and Guidelines, updating its existing Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, (“508 Standards”), and the Telecommunications Act Accessibility Guidelines under Section 255 of the Communications Act of 1934 (“255 Guidelines”). These Standards are now in effect as of January 18, 2018.
How does this affect the requirements for PDF compliance with Section 508?
The new rules are a lot to digest, as the encompass accessibility regulations for a huge range of electronic information technology.  Most of it does not pertain to our services at Accessibility In Mind (AIM), let's see what the actual rule says about PDFs:

The requirements for one specific type of electronic documents—those stored in PDF—are established by referencing the applicable ISO standard. PDF/UA-1 provides a technical, interoperable standard for the authoring, remediation, and validation of PDF content.

The new ruling provides much more specific requirements than the original rules, as it references the detailed guidelines of PDF/UA-1. PDF/UA-1 provides a technical, interoperable standard for the authoring, remediation, and validation of PDF content to ensure accessibility for people with disabilities who use AT such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, and joysticks to navigate and read electronic content.

This is a major leap forward, as the 20-year old Section 508 regulations didn't know what a PDF was, let alone what made a PDF accessible. Various agencies created their versions of their interpretations, most notably HHS (last update here is 2013) with no consensus reached. This left clients and remediators with the responsibility to actually create and publish accessible documents, and the ability to claim compliance with little fear of reprisal.

The International Standard for Accessible PDF Technology (PDF/UA-1) finally provides a roadmap for remediating, testing, and ensuring accessible PDFs that are compliant with the "refreshed" rules.

Accessibility is our goal here at AIM, and we are "refreshed" and ready! All documents remediated by Accessibility In Mind are compliant with PDF/UA-1

Why Use Accessibility In Mind For Your Section 508 Remediation: The AIM Difference

#1: Accessibility In Mind is a dedicated Section 508 and PDF/UA compliance service.

We are not a design/print house that does remediation on the side- remediating PDF documents, making them accessible and compliant, is our ONLY service.  Look at the home page of our competitors if you want to know what their main business is, then come back to AIM for your Section 508 work!

#2: We are not a middle-man, taking a commission and passing the work on to contractors.

When you work with AIM you are dealing DIRECTLY with Section 508 expert remediators, and paying less-- often 30-50% less-- than through other vendors. Deal direct, SAVE TIME AND MONEY!

http://accessibilityinmind.com/

Question: I'm new to Section 508 compliance- how does"remediation" change our documents?

This is a common question from our new clients. Often all they know about Section 508 is that there is a line-item in their deliverables contract stating that they must provide a "Section 508 compliant" PDF to complete the job.  The "remediated" document returned from the compliance service looks exactly like the document sent to them. How do we know we have a compliant document.

First off, there is NO certificate that is issued by any government agency certifying compliance. Your only proof of compliance is documentation that accompanies your accessible PDF.

 Luckily, you have found a reputable document remediation service, Accessibility In Mind, and you can rest easy.  When we complete any remediation we provide our clients with documentation of the work performed, which includes accessibility reports from one or more sources:

• Acrobat 11 full accessibility report: This is the first stop, a report that shows compliance in 32 of 32 categories, and proves technical compliance.
• PAC Accessibility Check: The PAC program provides a fast way to test the accessibility of PDF files. PAC supports both experts as well as end users conducting accessibility evaluations, and is based on the Matterhorn Protocol. Matterhorn was designed to foster adoption of PDF/UA by providing a set of 31 Checkpoints and 136 Failure Conditions that help software developers exchange detailed information on PDF/UA conformance and create software to make it easier for document authors to create fully accessible PDF files and forms.
• CommonLook by NetCentric Section 508 Reports: Common Look is considered the "gold standard" for accessibility reporting, and is recommended by Health & Human Services (HHS) and is generally accepted for all government contracts.

Additionally, all AIM documents are spot-checked using JAWS, the most popular screenreader developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse. (The read-aloud feature in Adobe Reader and Acrobat is NOT a substitute for a dedicated reader.) All AIM-remediated documents passing CommonLook accessibility checks meet HHS specifications and are guaranteed compliant with Section 508.

Undue Burden: A Legal Issue for Section 508 Compliance

Agencies can apply an exception to section 508's requirement to provide accessible and compliant documents if the creation of a compliant version would cause "an undue burden." Undue burden is defined as a significant difficulty or expense. However, the definition is not precise and is open to interpretation. Undue burden is a legal issue. Your agency should not consider such an exception without consulting legal counsel.

To determine if the undue burden exception applies, an agency must consider and thoroughly document the difficulty and expense of compliance in relation to all agency resources available to the program or component for which the product is being acquired.

When an agency qualifies for an undue burden exception, section 508 still requires it to provide an alternative means for individuals with disabilities to access the information. This means that even if the document is not accessible, the information or data it provides must be available through an alternative means of access. For example, an agency might provide a plain text version of a document that is not otherwise accessible.

Overcoming Accessibility Challenges for Section 508 Compliance

This is based on an article from the National Center on Disability and Access to Education, describing how properly structured / tagged PDF documents can be made accessible and in compliance with Section 508, and the disability types that can be aided by the process:

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Accessibility challenge	Disability type(s)	Solution(s)
Only true headings and lists will convey semantic meaning to a screen reader user.	Blind	Tag all headings so they are true headings (H1, H2, etc. Tag all lists as ordered or unordered lists.
Images must include an alternative description (alt text) to be meaningful to a screen reader user.	Blind	Add Alternate Text to each document. Combine complex figures and provide Alternate Text.
Complex charts or tables may not contain proper headings, captions or summaries.	Blind	Tag table rows (<TR>), table headers (<TH>), and table data cells (<TD>). Set the scope of each table header cell (column or row)
Poor color contrast, especially in images and charts.	Color blind, Low vision	Ensure sufficient color contrast in text, charts and images. One way to verify this is to print out the document on a black and white printer.
Documents with forms that can be filled in on the screen (checkboxes, text fields, etc.) may not be accessible to screen reader users and may not export correctly to other formats.	Blind, all users	Make sure form elements have appropriate tags. Verify that the form can be completed using common screen readers.
A page may be read out of order by a screen reader. That is, the reading order and the visual order may be different.	Blind	Check and edit the reading order using Acrobat reading order tools Verify reading order with screen reader
Scanned PDF files that are not converted to plain text will not be accessible to screen reader users.	Blind	Convert a scanned PDF file into text using an Optical Character Recognition program.
A PDF reader program must be used to view PDF files.	All users	The Adobe Reader can be downloaded free from the Adobe site. There are a number of free reader programs that are available for several platforms. The accessibility features of these readers vary.
Embedded multimedia may be inaccessible, especially if it is not captioned.	Deaf, Blind	Make sure embedded multimedia is captioned. This is possible in a PDF file. If necessary, provide audio descriptions for the blind.
Scanned PDF files converted to real text can have numerous misspellings that may only be apparent to screen reader users.	Blind	Use a spell check to make sure as many words are spelled correctly as possible.
Headers, footers, logos and other content that meant to be ignored may be read by a screen reader on every page.	Blind	Convert extraneous information to an artifact If appropriate, make the first instance of repetitive information visible and convert subsequent versions into artifacts.