New York State Accessibility Policy
Updated: December 8, 2010
- New! NYS P08-005 Accessbility Reporting - Technical Questions and Answers
- Federal Section 508 Refresh - Final Comments
- OFT's revised Accessibility Policy/New York State and 508
- NYS Policy vs. Section 508 vs. WCAG 2.0
- Policy Background and Previous Policy Information
Federal Section 508 Refresh - Final Comments
The Work Group collaborated on reviewing the 508 Refresh undertaken by the federal government. A Public commenting period for this Refresh was available to submit comments through June 21, 2010.
Here are the Final Comments submitted: Comments - HTML | Comments - Word
NYS Policy vs. Section 508 vs. WCAG 2.0
The IT Accessibility Work Group poured considerable effort into comparing New York State's previous policy with Section 508 and the WCAG 2.0, which were provided to CIO/OFT in 2010 prior to the revised policy effective May 17, 2010. These documents, available in Microsoft Word format, are listed here:
- 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
Policy Background and Previous Policy Information
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.
2004 Policy Updates
In June 2004 the NYS Office for Technology (OFT) issued their accessibility policy, P04-002, Accessibility of State Agency Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications. It is OFT's policy to separate policy documents from the technical specifications the policy governs, so in addition to P04-002, OFT issued Mandatory Technology Standard S04-001, comprised of 14 individual standards, derived from both the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and U. S. Section 508.
To facilitate ease of understanding and use, a Checklist by Standard was prepared to help web developers interpret results from validation programs, by mapping NYS standards to national (Section 508) and international (WCAG 1.0) guidelines and provides a pass/fail checklist to review your pages. Most validation programs refer to guidelines from either the WCAG or Section 508 when reporting results.
- Checklist by Standard - Maps NYS standards to national (Section 508) and international (WCAG 1.0) guidelines and provides a pass/fail checklist to review your pages.
- Deprecated Elements and Attributes — A complete list of the elements and attributes that have been retired from the HTML 4.01 specification.
- Frequently Asked Questions — Questions that State agency web developers have asked about the policy ... some answers, too!
- Presentation: NYS Technology Policy P04-002 & Mandatory Technology Standard S04-001: Accessibility of State Agency Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications (PowerPoint format)
- Standards Discussion and Code Examples — The reasoning behind each of the standards and examples of coding used to implement them.
2008 Policy Updates
- NYS Statewide Technology Policy P08-005 (Effective Date: August 1, 2008)
- NYS Technology Standard S08-005 (Effective Date: August 1, 2008)
- Commentary on 2008 Changes to the Technology Standard
NOTE: The materials collected in this section of our web site have been prepared by members of the Committee and are intended to support the NYS Accessibility Policy. These are not official documents. If you have comments or suggestions on these materials, please contact Joel Obuchowski or Estelle Council.