Posts Tagged ‘Finding Medicare Help’
There are an estimated 40 million people with disabilities in our country. The rest of us are temporarily abled, as they say. It’s only a matter of time until we have an injury or illness that will cause us to experience some sort of disability. Many people don’t think of accessibility for the disabled unless they become disabled or they’re close to someone who is. In many people’s minds, accessibility means wheelchair ramps, or automatic door openers, but accessibility laws apply to government websites and information technology too.
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a well known law that gives civil rights protections to people with disabilities. If you work for the government, it’s likely that you’ve also heard of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Section 508 requires access to electronic and information technology provided by the federal government.
As a web content manager for USA.gov, I’ve learned a lot about Section 508 standards. We take accessibility very seriously and we go to a lot of effort to try to make our website accessible to people with all types of disabilities.
Recently I learned that there will be an update on the Section 508 standards for information technology and telecommunications products. There’s an agency called the Access Board that develops and maintains design criteria for buildings, vehicles, telecommunications equipment, and for electronic and information technology.
The Access Board is circulating a draft of the updated standards and guidelines and you can now comment on the draft. These new standards and guidelines aim to make sure that people with disabilities have access to new technologies. So if you or somebody close to you has a disability and wants to be able to use technology that we temporarily abled people take for granted like cell phones, websites and media players…be sure to comment on the standards.