Web Accessibility

SUNY Web Accessibility Effort

On June 21, 2004, the NYS Office for Technology (OFT) released a revised (Policy P04-002) and Standard (S04-001) titled ′Accessibility of State Agency Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications.′ This new replaces and supersedes Technology Policy 96-13 (Accessibility to Technology) and Technology Policy 99-3 (Universal Accessibility for NYS Web Sites) and became effective immediately.

The policy consists of three parts:

Part 1 – State agency content accessibility for persons with disabilities;
Part 2 – Notice and contact information; and
Part 3 – Procurement of content design, development, and maintenance.

Part 1 addresses development and posting of new content, review of existing content and a compliance schedule. In summary:

content developed and posted after June 21, 2004 must comply with Policy P04-002;
all state agencies will have identified high-, medium- and low-traffic pages, home pages, and critical path pages by September 19, 2004;
high-traffic pages, home pages, and critical path pages must comply by December 18, 2004;
medium-traffic pages must comply by March 18, 2005; and
low-traffic pages must comply upon content changes.

Part 2 addresses notice and contact information. In summary:

an e-mail address and telephone number with respect to accessibility must be provided;
at a minimum, these links will be posted in the footer of the home page; and
these links must be clearly distinguishable form any other link.

Part 3 addresses procurement of Web site design, development, and maintenance. In summary:

on and after June 21, 2004, all contracts that include content design, creation, development, implementation, maintenance, or hosting will include the following clause:
′Any Web-based Intranet and Internet information and applications development, or programming delivered pursuant to the Contract will comply with NYS Office for Technology Policy P04-002, ′Accessibility of New York State Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications,′as such policy may be amended, modified, or superseded, which requires that state agency Web-based Intranet and Internet information and applications are accessible to persons with disabilities.′
exception - if portions of the Intranet, Internet, or Extranet are outside the control of the state agency, or the third-party, they will not be affected.

Standard S04-001, titled ′Accessibility of State Agency Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications′ is designed to provide the mechanism for state agencies to comply with the above-mentioned policy. It applies to content, Web-based applications, plug-ins, applets, on-line documents, forms and multi-media and consists of 14 standards. They are:

Standard 1 – Text Equivalents for Non-text Content;
Standard 2 – Use of Color of the Conveyance of Information;
Standard 3 – Document Structure;
Standard 4 – Navigation and Links;
Standard 5 – Flicker/Blink;
Standard 6 – Timed Responses;
Standard 7 – Tables;
Standard 8 – Frames, Context, and Orientation;
Standard 9 – Image Mapping;
Standard 10 – Audio Only;
Standard 11 – Multi-media;
Standard 12 – Scripting;
Standard 13 – Forms; and
Standard 14 – Downloadable/Embedded Objects

Campuses are individually responsible for maintaining Web accessibility.

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