New York State and Section 508
Updated: December 3, 2009
New York State has had a web accessibility policy since September of 1999. That first policy was aligned with the World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, current version (WCAG). When the guidelines were reformulated, and the "last call" draft was published in 2004, the IT Accessibility Committee advised that the successor WCAG guidelines were practically speaking, unimplementable. In reaction to this, OFT (with advice from the Committee) developed a set of hybrid standards that melded the WCAG and U. S. Section 508, which covered all federal agencies and contractors doing business with the federal government.
Rather than maintain a homegrown accessibility standard, the Office of the Chief Information Officer/Office for Technology CIO/OFT has proposed a new policy which would align with U. S. Section 508. The IT Accessibility Work Group (name changed in 2009) has done considerable research into comparing New York's policy with Section 508 and the WCAG 2.0, and has provided recommendations for CIO/OFT. These documents, available in Microsoft Word format, are listed below:
- NYS Standards Cross-Referenced with Section 508
- Policy Comparisons: Comparison of Section 508, NYS-P08-005, and WCAG 2.0
- Recommendations for CIO/OFT Proposal to Adopt Section 508