How to Keep Your Website Compliant

Websites that start out being compliant with accessibility requirements (Section 508 or WCAG) often become non-compliant. New content sources, new developers, new technologies, tight deadlines and shrinking budgets often make Section 508 coordinators and others responsible for web accessibility feel like they have a Sisyphean challenge.

Simply repeating the assessment of the entire site is not enough because it brings up the same issues over and over again and does not have the ability to pinpoint the new violations. Nor does it usually have the ability to remember the issues that you decided to ignore for the moment. In short all problems are given equal priority, where what you really want is just the new issues of the type that you want to fix.

Another popular approach is to try to mandate that accessibility checking be part of the development process. While this is clearly a sensible thing to do, it is not foolproof. Some developers, sometimes make mistakes (really!), new technologies sometimes allow accessibility problems slip through the old test process and accessibility requirements themselves change from time to time. An independent verification of the entire site is an essential layer of security that can give you the peace of mind that your hard-won accessibility status and credentials are maintained.