Comments on: Dutch Government Websites: Be accessible, or break the law

By: Raph

Raph — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 13:41:35 +0000

@Mario: US 508 says: “Color coding shall not be used as the only means of conveying information” and 508c: “Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.”
So when you do not only use color, but also icons and explanatory text, using green and red isn’t a problem at all.
And it isn’t a headache either, when you understand the meaning of the rule ;-)

By: Mario

Mario — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 14:13:30 +0000

For the dutch validator. Isnt red and green poor color choice becuase of color blind people??? I think that may fail US 508c stuff. I donno. I know its a headache.

By: jax

jax — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:13:52 +0000

C’mon guys.. read. This only applies to government sites. And anyhow, those sites are usually developed by some government department, so I guess that when the sites don’t comply they can go and arrest themselves. :-)

By: Morgan Roderick

Morgan Roderick — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:26:18 +0000

I guess this means that a lot of asp.net developers in .NL will have to learn new skills :P

By: Joeri

Joeri — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 09:01:25 +0000

I suspect this is meant to future-proof sites by making them easy to adapt for new platforms or users.

By: Ben Buchanan

Ben Buchanan — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 04:56:38 +0000

The real proof of the pudding will be in the way they enforce the law. Many countries have some level of legislation regarding accessibility – they just don’t enforce them, so the law is useless.

By: PohEe.com

PohEe.com — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 04:33:02 +0000

I wish Malaysia government is implementing this. Then we create ton of job opportunity for us since most of the websites area failed to comply to these standard. wuahahahahah.

By: Ross

Ross — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:57:50 +0000

This seems to have much more specific rules than Section 508. Whereas Section 508 does not explicitly mandate compliance when Javascript is disabled, it *appears* that one’s site must not rely exclusively on Javascript to pass the Dutch law.

This might pose some hurdles for Ajax web devs.

By: Charlie Park

Charlie Park — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:42:21 +0000

Isn't that the case in the US, with Section 508?

By: Zoran Kovacevic

Zoran Kovacevic — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:30:30 +0000

The testing is pretty easy, when you use the automated validator http://webrichtlijnen.overheid.nl/toetsen/.
It’s in Dutch, summarized: red is bad and green is good :)

Check out the results for this page: 58%!
http://webrichtlijnen.overheid.nl/toetsen/report/7615/12000/

By: James Curran

James Curran — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:44:02 +0000

>> information offered in a closed format (think Word) should also be offered in an open format

By: Andrew Herron

Andrew Herron — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:40:50 +0000

A little over the top though, isn’t it? While ensuring that a site is accessible is always a great thing, just forcing people to use a standard isn’t the best method. I’m not sure how page readers in NL work, but screen readers here have no problem with code that isn’t “standardized”. If their screen readers are so perfect that simply forcing the W3C standards, along with coding practice, ensures the page is accessible, maybe we should get those kinds of tools over here for our disabled.

By: Matt Oakes

Matt Oakes — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:17:59 +0000

Very good law, make sence in a way. Although even doing all that doesn’t mean that all sites will work in all browsers.