Information Technology Systems & Services
Checkpoints, Guidelines, and Standards
A number of different accessibility checkpoints, guidelines, standards exist.
- Web Accessibility Standards for the University of Minnesota
- Section 508 Guidelines (1194.22 Standards)
- W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
508 standards, and the University of Minnesota standards are both different from the Web Accessibility Initiative's (WAI's) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
- University Accessibility Standards are policy.
- Section 508 is a federal law.
- WAI's WCAG guidelines are not standards or policy.
However, both of the 508 and university documents are based primarily on WCAG. So an understanding of WCAG can aid in 508 and University work. WCAG (pronounced "wuh-KAG") is a long, rather technical document that serves a number of purposes, primarily functioning as the definitive technical reference gathering together information on web accessibility. The Understanding WCAG 2.0 doc and Techniques for WCAG 2.0 doc do not have the formal status that WCAG 2.0 itself has. But they provide important information in understanding and implementing WCAG.