Speaker 1: In this section, we're going to review the differences between WCAG, which is commonly called WCAG, 508 and ADA compliance, and why and when you should conform to the standards. The American Disability Act is a law that was passed in 1990 and it applies to all businesses in the U.S. It states that no one can discriminate against someone with a disability. So for example, everyone should be able to enter your building. So you need railings and ramps and automatic doors. These are important to prevent discrimination. So most of the law actually focuses on mobility and employment, but there's also a part that says a company's digital assets should also be accessible, of course, right? Section 508 is a section of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and it's a law that requires federal agencies and any vendor or business that receives federal funding to make all of their digital information accessible to everyone. So 508 really just refers to, you know, the Internet. So it should be accessible to everyone, including those with vision, hearing, mobility, cognitive impairments. So if you have to be Section 508 compliant, then you're also by default ADA compliant because you're making it available to more people. You're not discriminating. Sometimes people wonder if 508 applies to them. So if you sell anything, a physical product or a service, to a federal agency or to an entity that receives federal funding, which includes schools, hospitals, nursing homes, after-school programs, and much more, then Section 508 is a requirement for you. So that brings me to WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and those are the standards that allow a person to know if they're in compliance with Section 508. So these are detailed descriptions of how web content needs to be designed and executed in order to be accessible to all people. So there's three levels, A, AA, and AAA. 508 compliance is based on the AA guidelines. Even though you might not be required to be 508 compliant, I mean, it's best for everyone to just try to be as compliant as possible, right? Every public or private company is legally required to not discriminate against those with a disability. So by meeting the requirements of 508, you're ensuring that you're doing every single thing you can to not discriminate. So there's legal consequences if you are guilty of discrimination, okay? So it means that your content is only available to certain people, and I'm just going to let you look at a few examples. So in 2012, Netflix was sued for failing to provide adequate closed captions. They're a huge company, of course, so they're impacting many, many people. In 2017, Winn-Dixie was sued because its website wasn't accessible to screen readers. They couldn't get on there. They couldn't see the products. In 2017, Five Guys Burgers and Fries was sued because visually impaired users were not able to place orders on their sites. So they actually, you know, were discriminating against people who used screen readers. In 2018, the Fox News Network was sued due to the lack of alt text and because they had poorly designed and overused links that hampered the ease of use for keyboard users. In 2019, Park Entertainment was sued because the website that sold concert tickets didn't have alt text for the important images, and also keyboard users could not purchase tickets. That's a problem because they were discriminating against people that have mobility disabilities. There are hundreds of other examples, and of course, these are the most serious ones. In a lot of cases, a business is simply asked to correct the problem or develop a plan to correct the issues over time. So it's not always, you know, a huge fine, and it's not always, you know, like, it's not like you're going to go to prison. It's just you're going to be expected to fix the problem if you are sued, and it's just bad publicity. It's always more costly to fix problems than to fix them in the first place. So even if you find out later you want to be compliant, not for a legal reason, just because you want to, going back and fixing content is more expensive than just planning for it to begin with. Here are some of the most common legal issues you might encounter, okay? So you might realize, like, you don't have the time or the money to do everything required by Section 508, but at a minimum, you should probably have a plan for alt text, links, headings, menus, screen reader functionality, and course navigation, because those are the most common features involved in lawsuits. So you should have descriptive alt text and remove any icons or decorative graphics that don't contribute to the learning experience. Label all of your links. So for example, visit the MindGarden website in a new tab. I mean, it's very descriptive. The user knows exactly what's going to happen when they click the button. You can provide a menu in your course. Label all slide titles with the heading label. If there's slides and interactions that might give a screen reader trouble, add a skip button to be sure screen readers or keyboard users don't get stuck and have a keyboard trap. Provide instructions for how the course is organized and navigated and include on-screen instructions such as, like, click each card to learn more. So telling them about the built-in storyline keyboard shortcuts is also a great idea. According to the CDC, one in four adults live with a disability. Wow. So the most important thing isn't really the threat of lawsuits, okay? It's really about people and just doing the right thing, because 25% of people might need an accommodation to access your e-learning content. I mean, that's a significant portion of the population. So let's face it, in terms of marketability and profitability, you can't go wrong with doing the right thing by investing in accessibility. So just real quick, let's recap what you've learned. The ADA applies to all businesses and it includes physical and digital assets. The goal is to prevent discrimination. Section 508 applies to any media, so it's digital and actually physical, like paper, I forgot to mention that earlier, that's produced by a government agency or by anyone who accepts money from a government agency. Section 508 uses the WCAG guidelines as standards for how to gauge if someone has met the requirement. WCAG is a worldwide set of standards that describe what should be done and how in order to make digital products fully accessible. So there's three levels, it runs from basic to advanced, A to AAA, and Section 508 requires the AA level of conformance. There's legal consequences for not obeying these laws, if you're required to follow them, of course. It's just best practice for all e-learning courses to be as close to 508 compliance or AA WCAG conformance as you possibly can, as you can afford.