accessibility status of state of kansas websites

ACCESSIBILITY STATUS OF STATE OF KANSAS WEBSITES

AMP

Accessibility Management Platform Enterprise web accessibility assessment

tool Available to all agencies Performs automated testing (and

facilitates manual testing) Acquired in 2011, rolled out over 2011–

2012

AMP Assessment

Assessment Sample

Matches last year’s for direct comparison 63 agency home page domains, as

represented in the Agency Contact Listing page of the Communication Directory on the Department of Administration website (with corrections and a few additions)

Spidered each site up to 250 pages Automated testing

Pages

11,031 pages scanned 11,084 last year

8,041 pages had one or more violations (72.9%) Down from 9,292 pages (83.8%) last year ~11% reduction in pages with violations

Numbers of Violations

2011 2012 Δ

High Severity Violations 55,210 (48%) 34,470 (46%) ↓ 38%

Medium Severity Violations 11,533 (10%) 9,994 (13%) ↓ 13%

Low Severity Violations 48,248 (42%) 29,758 (40%) ↓ 38%

Total Violations 114,991 74,222 ↓ 35%

Agencies and Violations

Since last year, 70% of agencies have reduced their number of violations.

Overall and average numbers of violations dropped 35%, due to an overall elimination of almost 41,000 violations.

AMP

For more information about AMP:

http://oits.ks.gov/kpat/tool/

KPI

AMP usage Web content accessibility

PDF ACCESSIBILITY

PDF

Portable Document Format Multiplatform standard for electronic

document exchange

Broadly Adopted

Reliable, looks the same everywhere (Windows, Mac, Linux, tablet, phone, printer, etc.)

Difficult to alter but may be secured, stamped, annotated, redacted, digitally signed and much more

Works offline PDF/A files suitable for permanent archival Sturdy, powerful and flexible; essentially

“electronic paper” Easy to produce

Challenges

As visual fidelity was the sole original intent of PDF, it has no intrinsic semantics.

Anyone can and does make PDF documents and forms, so content production is often beyond web content managers’ control

Appearance is unmanaged (no CSS or equivalent) No visibility: even 1,000 page PDF files are “managed”

by content management systems as single objects While web pages can easily be fixed or tweaked,

changing PDF files usually means returning to the source

Accessibility Requirements

ITEC Policy 1210, Section 508, and WCAG all apply regardless of the technology, so PDF documents on state websites must be accessible just like HTML.

In order for a PDF document to be accessible, it must satisfy many of the same functional requirements as a traditional HTML web page (or any other form of ICT), such as: Alternative text for images Identification of document structure (headings) Programmatically identifiable table relationships Programmatically identifiable labels for form controls Adaptability to multiple modalities Etc.

Scope

Prevalence of PDF documents on state websites is significant—comparable to HTML!

One rough estimate (based on a small sample) suggests about half of the PDFs on state websites are untagged, and about 90% are non-compliant.

Authoring Accessible PDF

PDF accessibility must be addressed both in PDF itself and, in many cases, in the format of the originating document from which the PDF is created (e.g., Word).

Unlike HTML, accessible development and remediation of PDF requires additional software tools that are not freely available.

NetCentric CommonLook

NetCentric, with its CommonLook line of products and services, seems to be only major player in PDF accessibility space.

CommonLook Trial 23 people on evaluation team, from 12

agencies/organizations Evaluated CommonLook Office and CommonLook

PDF 60-day trial 7 webinar meetings with NetCentric personnel

Trial Outcome

Overall sentiment was positive Consensus that acquisition for regular use

would be desirable All agreed any purchase should be done

collectively for volume discount

Request

Would like agencies to identify—without commitment—potential users of each product: CommonLook Office, for non-technical content

creators using Microsoft Office (specifically, Word and PowerPoint)

CommonLook PDF, for more technical users who need to tag existing PDFs using Adobe Acrobat Professional (How many Acrobat licenses?)

Estimated numbers of users of each will determine available pricing

PDF Accessibility

For additional PDF accessibility information:

http://oits.ks.gov/kpat/resources/#pdf

Contact

For questions, comments, etc., please contact:

Cole RobisonDirector of IT AccessibilityOffice of Information Technology ServicesState of Kansascole.robison@ks.gov(785) 291-3016