Accessibility to Data Generated by Recovery.gov

What is the idea?

All information should be readily accessible for everyone, including people with disabilities. Adherence to accessibility standards defined in Section 508 and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) should be considered opportunities, not impediments to presenting data on Recovery.gov. For example, adding closed captioning/timed transcripts to video allows all viewers to search based on text. Also, adding XSL to raw data allows a wider audience to read and understand information that would normally be avoided. Many of the same techniques that make a site more accessible to assistive technology used by people with disabilities also make the information more machine processable. Just by following open standards like using valid XHTML will help avoid missteps and aggravation in making content accessible. And, although not a technical issue, please use simple and direct language in public documents.
While the current Recovery.gov site presents accessibility barriers and does not follow the standards it claims to follow such as XHTML, the National Dialogue site is much closer to the goal of being accessible. To help with making the Recovery.gov site more usable and valuable, we recommend the following steps:

1. Abide by open and accessibility standards starting in the design phase through completion. Define the standard used (we recommend WCAG 2.0 AA).
   
2. Provide human readable documentation when practicable to explain all posted data.
   
3. Use authoring tools when practicable that enforce standards and accessibility.
4. Audit all content that is made public to ensure that it is accessible.
5. Include a representation in all distributed and published material that it is accessible, preferably with an active link to test the representation so viewers can easily test for themselves.

Also there are some lightweight standards that will help with the public's ability to comment on and reuse content presented on Recovery.gov and Data.gov.

• Use simple web addresses for each and every page, including pages with raw data (see Cool URL's and avoid using "?q=content" in the site's URLs). This will allow the public to more easily cite Recovery.gov information in their own web sites, blogs and communications. In long documents, use anchor tags.
  
• Avoid iframes.
• Like Wikipedia, use simple XHTML with "id" and "class" attributes that will help avoid CSS problems and make the content more machine accessible.
• When possible, avoid locking up text in graphics and depending on alt tags. Note that downloadable fonts are now possible in most browsers with graceful degradation to standard fonts for other browsers (see CSS font-face).
• Always link to referenced laws, regulations and other government sites as practicable.
  
• Be especially careful when creating a public dialogue to avoid technologies that are inaccessible. Dialogues that take place in real time are more difficult and should require extra care. Consider allowing the public to self publish their own comments with embedded links to the relevant part of the Recovery Act and/or Recovery.gov site (see OPIA ).

Why is it important?

Making information accessible should be considered a great opportunity for Recovery.gov.

Daniel Bennett of advocatehope.org

and

Sharron Rush, Executive Director, of Knowbility