Now that designing for accessibility has become a way of doing business for federal IT contractors, they have another concern: Other governments will create their own, disparate standards for IT accessibility.
"What scares me is that the states think this [accessibility] is a good idea. I fear there will be 51 standards," said Rex Lint, chairman of the Section 508 committee of the Information Technology Association of America.
Forty-eight of 50 states now have rules on Web site accessibility, said Bob Regan, senior product manager for accessibility at software developer Macromedia Inc. of San Francisco. He said many national governments are pursuing accessibility standards as well. They include Australia, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.
Nothing is stopping other countries from adopting different standards "except a lot of lobbying from American companies" that already have spent time and money meeting the Section 508 standards, Lint said.
Disparate standards could slow the IT accessibility movement, said Department of Veterans Affairs official Craig Luigart.
"If you are Microsoft, IBM or Sun, trying to build hardware and software solutions that comply with a number of laws, you're probably going to wait for international law to solidify," said Luigart, the VA's associate deputy assistant secretary for policies, plans and programs.
Brad Westpfahl, director of government-industry programs for IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y., agreed that a proliferation of standards could hinder the accessibility movement rather than advance it.
"If we have to build to Japanese standards, European Union standards, state standards -- that would be a very challenging thing for us and would probably slow deployment," he said.
IBM and other IT contractors would likely lobby against efforts to establish disparate accessibility standards, he said.
"Our view in industry is that having one worldwide standard for measuring accessibility is the best way to go, not only for industry but also for governments," Westpfahl said. "They could expect to see a greater variety of accessibility products with higher level of compliance sooner and at lower cost.
"We are hopeful governments will converge on one standard, and 508 is the leading candidate," he said.
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