Dwayne,
I've worked as a contract developer for federal agencies (like the IRS) and
for state/local agencies in TX over the years. All of the contracts I've
been on since 1998 have had a requirement that the products developed be
useable by people with disabilities, including navigation without the use of
a mouse, visual layout on the monitor screen not affected by change of font
size/monitor specifics, etc. In fact, when I worked out at the IRS site, we
actually used disabled people who worked in the gov't to test our products
prior to deployment.
Even though I have not read Section 508, this is not new news to anyone who
has worked on a federal contracts for IT services. This has been a
requirement, as least in the contract itself, for the last couple of years.
In most cases, we developed our own internal libraries of code to meet any
needs a federal contract client required in regard to the software meeting
special needs/requirements for people with disabilities. Since these were
all "cost plus" contracts, it didn't matter how much it cost us to develop
these custom libraries, as we were always able to recoup our costs, plus the
fixed amount of profit/overhead that was negotiated in the contract. The
custom libraries, of course, belonged to the client when we were done, per
the requirements of the contract.
If you or your company is looking at making third party components to meet
this requirement, I would suggest that you do your homework on gov't
contracts/contracting in general first. Many of these types of contracts
are "cost +", and are very lucrative contracts, as you are guaranteed to
recoup your costs and get your "fixed profit" as specified in the contract.
Some contracts even award bonus money if you finish by a certain
predetermined milestone. But in most cases, it behooves the contracting
firm NOT to use third party tools, but to develop custom code, to meet many
of these types of federal requirements. By doing so, you tie the client
closer to you and your services, and increase your chances that the client
will renew his contract with you indefinitely. Many of these contracts,
such as the one I was on with the IRS, are 5 to 20 year contracts, with
options for renewal/exit out every 3-5 years. So as you can see, using
third party tools are usually NOT in the interest of the contract firm, or
the programmers who are on the contract.
Celeste
-----Original Message-----
From: Conyers, Dwayne [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 9:45 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Section 508
We are developing JSP for federal government clients and are concerned about
compliance with Section 508, which President Bush recently spoke about and
which many government agencies are very nervous about.
http://www.iqsolutions.com/accessibility/section%20508/default.htm provides
details on Section 508, in case you are outside the USA or if you have never
heard of this provision.
I am curious how other JSP developers are working to stay in compliance with
this regulation... and specifically how difficult/easy is it to achieve and
maintain compliancy?
Also, are there any tools out there that automate the process of making JSP
documents Section 508 compliant? We found a plug-in for Macromedia
UltraDev. Any others? Thanks!
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And take a giant step outside your mind.
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