Review Process

On January 18, 2017 (updated January 22, 2018), the United States Access Board published a final rule that jointly updates requirements for information and communication technology covered by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 255 of the Communication Act. This refresh harmonizes the requirements with other guidelines and standards both in the U.S. and abroad, including standards issued by the European Commission and with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), a globally recognized voluntary consensus standard for web content and ICT.

The Access Board has aligned the updated Section 508 guidelines with Level AA of WCAG 2.0 and the United States Department of Agriculture requires additional testing of several AAA criteria (but not all). NFC has elected to add the additional WCAG 2.1 guidelines (June 5, 2018) as well in order to benefit our customer community.

All passed and/or failed criteria found during the evaluation will be aligned with the appropriate WCAG 2.1 criteria for reference as well as the Harmonized Processes for Section 508 Testing: Baseline Tests for Software & Web Accessibility where applicable.

NFC’s accessibility review process consists of a combination of semi-automated evaluation tools and manual evaluation by an experienced reviewer. The following evaluation tools may be used during an accessibility audit.

1. DeQue aXe Chrome Extension
2. DHS Trusted Tester Bookmarklets for Internet Explorer
3. Web Aim Color Contrast Tool
4. JAWS Screen Reader
5. ZoomText Magnifier/Reader