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Section 508 Common Issues

Overview

The Federal Genderal Services Administration (GSA) has conducted a high-level scan across a sample of 45 major public-facing federal websites to provide a baseline assessment of relative accessibility levels. This scan employed low/no cost automated checking tools to perform basic website ‘triage’ screening based on automated accessibility checks.

Most common Section 508 issues according to GSA

This study is a good indicator of common web accessibility pitfalls and challanges common across government entities and their websites. Review the issues below, GSA's recommendations for remeidation, as well as those suggested by the E-Government Program.

Original Post: Frequently Observed Accessibility Issues on Federal Websites

10 most frequently observed issues corresponding to WCAG 2.0 Level A Success Criteria
Issue GSA Guidance E-Gov Program Guidance

This page has markup errors, causing screen readers to miss content.

This issue was observed in 100% of websites scanned.

Use a validator tool to make sure that significant validation/parsing errors are avoided. A list of resources for validating HTML/XHTML from the WCAG Working Group is in Validating Web pages.

 See GSA Guidance

Identify row and column headers in data tables using TH elements, and mark layout tables with role='presentation'.

This issue was observed in 96% of websites scanned.

Use header elements (th) or other appropriate table mark-up to make the headers programmatically determinable. Guidance from the WCAG Working Group is in Using table markup to present tabular information.

Avoid the use of SharePoint's Insert > Table feature as it does not create an accessibile starting point. Instead, either use the DataTables web part (v4.x only) OR use one of our table-related Code Snippets as a starting point.

Use the LANG attribute to identify the language of the page.

This issue was observed in 96% of websites scanned.

Identify the default language of a document by providing the lang and/or xml:lang attribute on the html element. Guidance from the WCAG Working Group is in Using language attributes on the html element.

While all three of the templates used by the State of Oregon should prevent a missing LANG attribute, the simplyes ways to locate all pages which do not have a LANG atribute are:

  • Reququest a QA Report from the E-Government Service Desk
  • Use a third-party accessibility scanning service/software
    		•

    Document title must not be blank.

    This issue was observed in 93% of websites scanned.

    Include a title element in the head section that defines the purpose of the page. Guidance from the WCAG Working Group is in Providing a title using the title element.

    While the content management system the State of Oregon uses likely prevents an empty Title element, the simplest ways to locate all pages which do not have a title element is are:

    • Create a Content & Structure report which checks whether the Title field is blank (SharePoint-only)
    • Request an QA Report from the E-Government Service Desk
    • Use a third-party validation service/software

    Figures and images in PDF documents should have non blank ALT text, except for decorative images which should be marked as artifacts.

    This issue was observed in 87% of websites scanned.

    Provide text alternatives for images in PDF documents via an /Alt entry in the property list for a Tag. This is normally accomplished using a tool for authoring PDF. Guidance from the WCAG Working Group is in Applying text alternatives to images with the Alt entry in PDF documents (link is external).

    		 TBD

    This page has duplicate IDs which cause problems in screen readers.

    This issue was observed in 87% of websites scanned.

    Check to make sure that ID attribute values are unique within a document by validating the document against its schema. A list of resources for validating HTML/XHTML from the WCAG Working Group is in Validating Web pages.

    		 TBD

    PDFs must be tagged to be accessible by screen readers.

    This issue was observed in 84% of websites scanned.

    Tagged PDF (PDF 1.4) exposes PDF's logical structure and order. More information from the WCAG Working Group is in PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.0.

    		 TBD

    IMG tags must have an ALT attribute.

    This issue was observed in 82% of websites scanned.

    When using the img element, specify a short text alternative with the alt attribute. More information from the WCAG Working Group is in Using alt attributes on img elements (link is external).

    		 TBD

    This form control has no associated LABEL element.

    This issue was observed in 82% of websites scanned.

    Use the label element to explicitly associate a form control with a label through the use of the for attribute. The value of the for attribute must be the same as the value of the id attribute of the form control. More information from the WCAG Working Group is in Using label elements to associate text labels with form controls (link is external).

    		 TBD

    Each A tag must contain text or an IMG with an ALT attribute.

    This issue was observed in 78% of websites scanned.

    Describe the purpose of a link by providing descriptive text as the content of the a element. When an image is the only content of a link, the text alternative for the image should describe the unique function of the link. More information from the WCAG Working Group is in Providing link text that describes the purpose of a link for anchor elements.

    		 TBD