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  4.  / Is Xoops section 508 compliant?
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1
phillipd
Is Xoops section 508 compliant?

  • 2004/6/13 20:12

  • phillipd

  • Quite a regular

  • Posts: 219

  • Since: 2004/4/20


Is XOOPS section 508 compliant? My government employer is requesting this? What is it and does XOOPS comply?

Thanks

Doug P
2
Mithrandir
Re: Is Xoops section 508 compliant?

Section 508 is a set of requirements to make web pages usable by disabled people such as blind people.

It is extremely difficult to ensure Section 508 from a CMS level because it all depends on the content being supplied - and since most comes from users/webmasters and not from the programmers.

The short answer is that much depends on the theme, much depends on the usage and much depends on the CMS - where XOOPS is not built with Section 508 in mind, but it should not be impossible to make a Section 508-compliant site with XOOPS.
3
jasonwhat
Re: Is Xoops section 508 compliant?

  • 2004/6/15 2:26

  • jasonwhat

  • Just popping in

  • Posts: 19

  • Since: 2004/6/13


How do I check that?
4
JohnCVermont
Re: Is Xoops section 508 compliant?

Wow ... excellent question ... This is a worthy & noble pursuit. Section 508 is a new term to me (although I admit, I should have known, I knew it as ADA compliance which is not accurate). Not a new concept or the goal, but certainly a new term. In my previous experience at a very large computer & software manufacturer, as you (Mithrandir) said, these types of presentation modes needed to be handled by very refined themes, templates, styles, embedded scripts, etc. Not hard, just work like anything else.

But I honestly can't remember *any* off-the-shelf products which handles this requirement handily.

Probably worthy of a XOOPS Wiki page or future FAQ?

5
i_mdiver
Re: Is Xoops section 508 compliant?

  • 2004/6/23 0:57

  • i_mdiver

  • Just popping in

  • Posts: 14

  • Since: 2004/3/19


There is a product that is 100% compliant (plone.org). It's the only one I've seen so far, and one I may have to use for our University dive club site that I trying to create using XOOPS (Hoofer SCUBA).

For US universities, there is a serious need for Section 508 compliant websites - especially within the confines of the U.S. Federal Government regulations. (This may sound harsh, but why someone who is blind would want to dive is beyond me - I just know the site has to abide by the government standards)

And if what the developers here say is true - that it should be relatively easy, but a lot of work - I'd love to see it done. I'm not a developer, and as such, I may have to switch to plone.org to satisfy the feds...

Based on what I've seen, plone does not have the module development this community does, which is one of the reasons I decided to use XOOPS instead.

So what, if any, effort are the developers considering for Section 508 compliancy?

Thanks,
i_mdiver out -- out diving that is.
6
MadFish
Re: Is Xoops section 508 compliant?

  • 2004/6/23 2:52

  • MadFish

  • Friend of XOOPS

  • Posts: 1056

  • Since: 2003/9/27


Some blind people have been known to dive (don't ask me why) and I'm sure there are some blind ex-divers out there who are still interested in it

I support the idea of making XOOPS more accessible but I wouldn't support tying it to Section 508 - simply because XOOPS is an international community and Section 508 is US legislative requirement - it doesn't apply in the rest of the world (hello from Thailand :) Many governments will have their own standards and it would be impossible for XOOPS to meet them all.

Just out of idle curiosity, are there any internationally accepted web accessibility guidelines or standards out there ? ISO or the web consortium or something ?
7
jayjay
Re: Is Xoops section 508 compliant?

  • 2004/6/23 7:24

  • jayjay

  • Not too shy to talk

  • Posts: 175

  • Since: 2003/9/10


Hi everybody!

Nice to see someone thinking of web accessibility for sight-impaired people! We tried this on our site http://www.sint-niklaas.be but admittedly we still have some work to do.

To check if your site is section 508 compliant, just use Webaim's WAVE:
http://www.wave.webaim.org/

They even have a toolbar and a bookmarklet so you can check any page any time you want!

Greets

Jay Jay
8
dtauto
Re: Is Xoops section 508 compliant?

  • 2004/7/10 2:31

  • dtauto

  • Just popping in

  • Posts: 56

  • Since: 2004/7/4 0


i'm a little late on this post, but in one of my college classes on web useability about a year ago (i try to refresh myself yearly), we discussed BOBBY (a web browser for the sight impaired that basically reads to you) and how to make pages BOBBY compliant.

the easiest ways to make a page compliant in that respect is to make sure you do the ALT tags on ALL of your images, as this is how sight-impaired browsers muddle through graphics.

don't use flash. unless you're the master of actionscript and can revolutionize the flash scene, it's not even worth trying. at least not if your entire site isn't flash based.

give all of your links a tab order. you don't want a blind user to hit the tab button and fly all the way to the bottom of the page if your nav is at the top.

there was more, but i'm a bit forgetful sometimes. if i can think of anymore hints, i'll post them.

hope i helped.
9
robbiet
Re: Is Xoops section 508 compliant?

  • 2004/7/21 10:10

  • robbiet

  • Just popping in

  • Posts: 2

  • Since: 2004/7/21


This resource proved invaluable when I had to make an accessible version of a site: http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag-curric/oversam.htm

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