FedStats 508/Accessibility Workshop
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Opening Remarks

This workshop began as a discussion at a FedStats Task Force meeting six months or so ago about the issues that we, as statistical agencies, could address better as the whole of FedStats, rather than as individual agencies. Among the ideas discussed at the meeting, Section 508--and particularly the guidelines that apply to tables and charts--became an obvious issue for us to tackle.

We were all frustrated by the lack of guidance on tables and charts with the sophistication we needed. Examples offered up by various organizations did not meet our needs--they were too simplistic, they focused on look-up rather than data tables, and they were inconsistent not only across organizations but within organizations as well. Those same issues also tended to get a once-over-lightly at the various 508 seminars hosted around town. In addition, we needed to do this on such a large scale that we didn't have time for a lot of trial and error or a steep learning curve.

In planning this workshop, we have been acutely aware of the fact that while management is very focused on meeting the 508 requirements, there is also a larger picture out there. True accessibility and usability extend far beyond the sixteen points of Section 508. We hope the program we've put together for this workshop is balanced in both respects. Our initial plans included a much broader agenda, but we found that as the depth of the sessions increased, we had to cut the breadth down to those core issues unique to statistical agencies.

At the workshop today we have representatives from over 40 government agencies. In addition, we have representatives from the disabled community, the research community, and the vendor community. We feel that each of those groups has a very important role in helping us get a handle on our problems today and advancing how we deal with accessibility in the future.

To the government representatives: You are the ones who know your data, presentation formats, and the process by which that information gets disseminated. This is your opportunity to have your voice heard by many communities, as part of a larger whole, and to discuss with them the problems you are facing.

To the vendors: You have heard from many of us individually. I know I've often tracked down your representatives after 508 seminars and have shown them the types of tables we are faced with coding. And while everyone has agreed, "Yep, that's a problem," I alone am not enough of a force to motivate you to find a solution. But look around; now there are over 100 of us, representing many others back at our agencies, with hundreds of thousands if not millions of tables, and we need your help. We cannot continue to try and code each table individually, nor can we continue to check the work done by others line by line--not to see if the proper tags are in place but to check the quality of those tags.

To the disabled participants: While many of us are trying to test with screen readers and imagine what it is like for you to try and access our data, realistically we can only guess. We really don't know what is inaccessible, unusable, or just plain annoying to you. We need to know where the stumbling blocks are and what our priorities should be from your perspective.

And, to the researchers: We hope you will see places where your current work can be applied to address some of our problems. And we hope today's discussions will spark new ideas for you to explore.

While we may not have all the answers today, we hope to plant the seeds of thought in all of you that will grow into those answers tomorrow.

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