About Arizona Statewide Policy P130.

The state of Arizona embraced the spirit of Section 508 broadly but when it came to the internet, it took a step back from Section 508 standards. Statewide Policy P130, "Web Site Accessibility" was made effective on November 19, 2001. While not as comprehensive as Section 508 (which in turn is not as comprehensive as WAI's WCAG), it sets at least a minimal baseline for website accessibility for state institutions.

Who needs to know?

If your agency receives, expends or disburses state funds or incurs obligations of the state and it has a publicly-available website, P130 applies to your agency. If your agency receives or expends federal funding, you must comply to Section 508. Since Section 508 goes above and beyond the requirements of P130, so you don't have to worry about P130 specifically.

Interpreting Arizona Statewide Policy P130.

On a technical level P130 exists as a set of 16 brief criteria which websites must pass, however, P130 was supplied with an explanatory addenda: Attachment A. Attachment A, not surprisingly, turns out to be a condensation of Section 508 which in itself is not only a subset of W3C compliance and WAI-WCAG guidelines, it explicitly references W3C and WAI-WCAG in it's requirements. As such, it seems we can consider P130 a subset or "little sibling" of Section 508.

Critiquing P130.

Interestingly, the state defined those aspects where it undershot Section 508 requirements as "known limitations" of "existing technology". Specifically, it stated that P130 does not address Braille production, synthesized speech production or alternative input modalities such as voice input or alternative keyboard and pointing devices due to these "known limitations". At the time of adoption, these factors were not, in fact, limitations. What they were was new and widely misunderstood. There were those developers who were producing web pages which were accessible to speech recognition software, could output to Braille devices and could be accessed with alternative input devices. On today's internet, these factors are in fact resolved with standards-based web development, but still, most web developers remain ignorant of this cutting edge.

This is unfortunate as it leaves a great many disabled persons out in the cold while the internet is just the type of thing that could be helping them. P130's guidelines, while a step in the right direction, are primarily about assisting the visually disabled, but they stop short of effecting real benefit for the blind.

The dataSpheric position on P130.

All dataSpheric website development currently meets or excedes all Arizona Statewide Policy P130 requirements as well as all Section 508, W3C validity and WAI-WCAG requirements. By soliciting feedback from disabled users who have surfed our websites, we are able to produce the highest level of accessible website design.

How we can help the disabled public on the internet.

The methods of the standards-based web development movement incorporate Section 508 as well as W3C validity and WAI-WCAG specifications. By selecting a more professional web developer for your agency's needs who is practiced in these techniques, we can deliver quality information to connect all Arizonans.

See Arizona Statewide Policy P130 in it's full form with attachement A.

• dataSpheric accessibility home
• Website accessibility testing
• Standards-Based Web Design
• Section 508
• Blind user or Jaws user websites
• dataSpheric Accessibility Directory