Section 508 compliance, built into every page

What is Section 508?

Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities, including their own employees. Since the 2017 Refresh, its technical requirement for web content is WCAG 2.0 level AA, incorporated by reference. It binds federal agencies directly and reaches private businesses through procurement: agencies must buy conforming products, so their suppliers are asked to document conformance.

The Section 508 checklist

Eight steps, in the order they are worth doing. On a SOSEI rebuild steps 3 to 8 are part of what the pipeline writes; the list is here so the work is legible whatever the site is built with.

1. 1

   Confirm whether Section 508 applies to you

   Section 508 binds US federal agencies. A private business is usually reached through procurement — an agency customer asking a supplier to document conformance. If you have no public-sector customers, the ADA is the question you are actually answering, and it lands on the same standard.

2. 2

   Establish the target: WCAG 2.0 AA at minimum

   The 2017 Section 508 Refresh incorporates WCAG 2.0 level AA by reference for web content. Building to WCAG 2.1 AA covers it, because 2.1 is backwards compatible with 2.0 and only adds criteria.

3. 3

   Fix contrast in the stylesheet, not in a widget

   Text must meet the AA contrast ratio in the palette every visitor sees. SOSEI enforces this in the design tokens before a page is authored, at AAA 7:1 on body text and AA 4.5:1 on muted and accent text.

4. 4

   Give every non-text element a text alternative

   Content images need alternative text that conveys their purpose; decorative images must be marked as decorative so assistive technology skips them. Video needs captions and, where it carries information not in the audio, a description.

5. 5

   Make the structure real, not visual

   Heading levels, lists, tables and landmark regions must exist in the markup rather than being simulated with font sizes and spacing. This is what lets a screen-reader user navigate a page instead of reading it end to end.

6. 6

   Label every form control and name every link

   Each input needs an associated label, each error needs to be announced and associated with its field, and each link's text must describe its destination out of context — 'read more' repeated eleven times is a failure.

7. 7

   Make everything reachable and visible from the keyboard

   All functionality must work without a mouse, focus order must follow the reading order, focus must stay visible, and no component may trap it. A skip link to the main content is part of this.

8. 8

   Publish an accessibility statement, and keep evidence

   State the standard the site is built to and how to report a barrier. For federal procurement, that evidence is what an Accessibility Conformance Report is written from — the report is the vendor's own signed assertion, so it is authored by the business that owns the site.

How Section 508 relates to WCAG 2.1 AA

Section 508 does not define its own success criteria for web content — it points at WCAG 2.0 level AA. WCAG 2.1 is backwards compatible with 2.0 and adds criteria covering mobile interaction, low vision and cognitive accessibility, so a page that meets 2.1 AA meets everything 2.0 AA asks for. That is why SOSEI targets 2.1 AA rather than the minimum: one level satisfies the federal requirement, the standard ADA claims are argued against, and the European Accessibility Act's route through EN 301 549 — without three separate builds.

Where it stops: SOSEI ships the built artifact and the audit behind it. A Vendor Product Accessibility Template is a supplier's own signed assertion about a product, so it is written by the business that owns the site, from that evidence. Nothing here is legal advice.