Creating a Designated 508 Branch within a Federal Agency

Section 508 is a legal mandate for Federal Agencies, necessitating that their websites and information be fully accessible to people with various disabilities.

Challenge: One of our Federal Agency clients was faced with a time sensitive problem to reach every household in the United States for a statistical survey and massive data capture. Within that challenge, the Agency needed to accommodate the various accessibility needs of the estimated 40 million Americans with disabilities.

Solution: Our work in the management and orchestration of this agency website allows people to respond to survey questions anywhere — online — from any device or by mail or phone.

In preparation for the project rollout, our client engaged the HumanTouch Section 508 Team to review and remediate of all its websites and pages. The team has subsequently been assessing, providing remediation for, and certifying hundreds of websites across this Federal Agency client.

Our team established and continues to run a designated Section 508 Branch within its Information Technology Directorate, Application and Management Services Division.

The HumanTouch 508 Team plan of action:

• Establish and maintain Section 508 policies and governance;
• Identify and assist with the correction of Section 508 non-compliant content;
• Scan and monitor the network for Section 508 non-compliant content;
• Engage with internal and external stakeholders on Section 508 matters;
• Develop and acquire Section 508 training materials;
• Apply Section 508 principles during the Software Quality Assurance phase;
• Establish a short-term Section 508 waiver process;
• Implement Section 508 compliance checks and modifying the eSDLC at key milestones;
• Ensure Section 508 representation and input when creating business requirements;
• Assist other business departments in their efforts to comply with USCB policy.

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