RFP_Attachment_J.6.pdf

DTFH6116R00003

Attachment No. J.6

Minimum Requirements for FHWA Web Pages and

Section 508 Standards Acceptance

The Minimum Requirements for FHWA Web Pages were established by the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Information Technology Division in an effort to achieve greater quality, usability, and consistency across all FHWA web pages. More detailed information about the Minimum Requirements for FHWA Web Pages can be found at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/wpcz/minimum.htm.

The Board’s Section 508 Standards apply to electronic and information technology procured by the federal government. More detailed information about Section 508 can be found at “United States Access Board Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology” at http://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) requires all offices to follow the Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology. The ITS Joint Program Office has pledged to uphold high standards to meet these requirements.

Section 508 is “The Law”. It is the responsibility of all ITS Joint Program Office Contractors to adhere to current and any future updated guidelines set forth by the United States Access Board Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology. The Contractor shall keep up-to-date with the Section 508 Requirements and apply these requirements to the ITS Joint Program Office products. It is the responsibility of the Contractor to understand Section 508.

The Contractor shall review all products they submit to be sure the products meet the Minimum Requirements for FHWA Web Pages and Section 508 Requirements. The ITS Joint Program Office will reject Contractor products that do not meet the Minimum Requirements for FHWA Web Pages and Section 508 Requirements. The Contractor shall use the Adobe Dreamweaver Software to develop Web pages for the ITS Joint Program Office. The ITS Joint Program Office will supply to the Contractor a 508 HTML Report template (developed in Adobe Dreamweaver) to be used for all reports, brochures, flyers; etc.

1. Minimum Requirements for Federal Highway Administration FHWA Web Pages, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/wpcz/minimum.htm:

i. FHWA developed a list of requirements for Web pages to be posted to the agency Web sites. The Contractor shall follow all requirements for all products, including tools, software, reports, etc. Products that do not meet these requirements will not be posted to the ITS Joint Program Office Web sites and the Contractor will not be remunerated for unacceptable Section 508 work.

ii. FHWA Web pages will comply with Section 508 Web Accessibility Standards as established by the Architectural Transportation Barriers Compliance Board.

a. Web pages posted to the FHWA ITS Joint Program Office Web sites shall meet the Section 508 Standards requirements.

b.All textual files posted on the FHWA Internet server will be available in Section 508 HTML format. All other formats (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) will not be accepted as Section 508 and must have HTML equivalent.

2. The Contractor shall evaluate and test all products for the Minimum Requirements for FHWA Web Pages to make sure the products meet the Section 508 Standards before being posted to the ITS Joint Program Office Web sites.

i. The ITS Joint Program Office will check the Contractor work for adherence to the following Minimum Requirements for FHWA Web Pages and Section 508 Standards:

1. Shall be encoded to conform to HTML 4.01 Transitional or higher, as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium.

2. File names shall not exceed 20 characters in length. File names shall be lower case, consist solely of letters, numbers, and the underscore and will not contain slashes, spaces, tildes, or hyphens.

3. File extensions are to be 3 characters or less whenever possible (e.g., .htm instead of .html).

4. Shall be free of broken links or missing images. All links to pages within the server will be relative.

5. Shall have a standard header and footer. Web pages posted on StaffNet will use the standard templates. (The ITS Joint Program Office will provide a template to be used for Web pages posted to the ITS Joint Program Office Web site.)

6. Shall comply with Section 508 web accessibility standards as established by the Architectural Transportation Barriers Compliance Board.

7. Textual files posted on the FHWA Internet server shall be available in HTML format. All other formats (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) will have HTML equivalents.

8. All bodies of Web pages shall use sans-serif fonts, e.g., Arial or Helvetica.

9.Shall feature "exit doors (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/exit.cfm?link=)" on links to non-government web sites (anything other than a federal, state or local governments).

10. Shall feature a privacy policy statement (or a link to the Agency privacy policy statement on the main server).

11. Web pages that collect survey information from the public must be approved by the Office of Management and Budget, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act.

12. New FHWA Web sites shall be approved by the FHWA Chief Information Officer (CIO) before posting.

13. The use of "persistent" cookies on FHWA web sites is forbidden.

"Sessions" cookies are permitted, subject to approval on a case-by-case basis.

3. The Contractor shall evaluate and test all products for Section 508 Requirements before being posted to the ITS Joint Program Office Web sites.

i. 508 Section 1194.21 Software applications and operating systems. (Source:

United States Access Board, Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology, http://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/section-508-standards)

(a) When software is designed to run on a system that has a keyboard, product functions shall be executable from a keyboard where the function itself or the result of performing a function can be discerned textually.

(b) Applications shall not disrupt or disable activated features of other products that are identified as accessibility features, where those features are developed and documented according to industry standards. Applications also shall not disrupt or disable activated features of any operating system that are identified as accessibility features where the application programming interface for those accessibility features has been documented by the manufacturer of the operating system and is available to the product developer.

(c) A well-defined on-screen indication of the current focus shall be provided that moves among interactive interface elements as the input focus changes.

The focus shall be programmatically exposed so that assistive technology can track focus and focus changes.

(d) Sufficient information about a user interface element including the identity, operation and state of the element shall be available to assistive technology. When an image represents a program element, the information conveyed by the image must also be available in text.

(e) When bitmap images are used to identify controls, status indicators, or other programmatic elements, the meaning assigned to those images shall be consistent throughout an application’s performance.

(f) Textual information shall be provided through operating system functions for displaying text. The minimum information that shall be made available is text content, text input caret location, and text attributes.

(g) Applications shall not override user selected contrast and color selections and other individual display attributes.

(h) When animation is displayed, the information shall be displayable in at least one non-animated presentation mode at the option of the user.

(i) Color coding shall not be used as the only means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.

(j) When a product permits a user to adjust color and contrast settings, a variety of color selections capable of producing a range of contrast levels shall be provided.

(k) Software shall not use flashing or blinking text, objects, or other elements having a flash or blink frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz.

(l) When electronic forms are used, the form shall allow people using assistive technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required for completion and submission of the form, including all directions and cues.

ii. 508 Section 1194.22 Web-based intranet and internet information and applications. (Source: United States Access Board, Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology, http://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/section- 508-standards)

(a) A text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided (e.g., via “alt”, “longdesc”, or in element content).

(b) Equivalent alternatives for any multimedia presentation shall be synchronized with the presentation.

(c) Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.

(d) Documents shall be organized so they are readable without requiring an associated style sheet.

(e) Redundant text links shall be provided for each active region of a server-side image map.

(f) Client-side image maps shall be provided instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape.

(g) Row and column headers shall be identified for data tables.

(h) Markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers.

(i) Frames shall be titled with text that facilitates frame identification and navigation.

(j) Pages shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz.

(k) A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a web site comply with the provisions of this part, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes.

(l) When pages utilize scripting languages to display content, or to create interface elements, the information provided by the script shall be identified with functional text that can be read by assistive technology.

(m) When a web page requires that an applet, plug-in or other application be present on the client system to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to a plug-in or applet that complies with §1194.21(a) through (l).

(n) When electronic forms are designed to be completed on-line, the form shall allow people using assistive technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required for completion and submission of the form, including all directions and cues.

(o) A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.

(p) When a timed response is required, the user shall be alerted and given sufficient time to indicate more time is required.

Note to §1194.22: 1. The Board interprets paragraphs (a) through (k) of this section as consistent with the following priority 1 Checkpoints of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) (May 5, 1999) published by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium:

Section 1194.22 Paragraph WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint

(a) 1.1

(b) 1.4

(c) 2.1

(d) 6.1

(e) 1.2

(f) 9.1

(g) 5.1

(h) 5.2

(i) 12.1

(j) 7.1

(k) 11.4

2. Paragraphs (l), (m), (n), (o), and (p) of this section are different from WCAG 1.0. Web pages that conform to WCAG 1.0, level A (i.e., all priority 1 checkpoints) must also meet paragraphs (l), (m), (n), (o), and (p) of this section to comply with this section. WCAG 1.0 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/.

iii. 508 Section 1194.24 Video and multimedia products (Source: United States Access Board, Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology, http://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/section-508-standards)

(a) All analog television displays 13 inches and larger, and computer equipment that includes analog television receiver or display circuitry, shall be equipped with caption decoder circuitry which appropriately receives, decodes, and displays closed captions from broadcast, cable, videotape, and DVD signals. As soon as practicable, but not later than July 1, 2002, widescreen digital television (DTV) displays measuring at least 7.8 inches vertically, DTV sets with conventional displays measuring at least 13 inches vertically, and stand-alone DTV tuners, whether or not they are marketed with display screens, and computer equipment that includes DTV receiver or display circuitry, shall be equipped with caption decoder circuitry which appropriately receives, decodes, and displays closed captions from broadcast, cable, videotape, and DVD signals.

(b) Television tuners, including tuner cards for use in computers, shall be equipped with secondary audio program playback circuitry.

(c) All training and informational video and multimedia productions which support the agency’s mission, regardless of format, that contain speech or other audio information necessary for the comprehension of the content, shall be open or closed captioned.

(d) All training and informational video and multimedia productions which support the agency’s mission, regardless of format, that contain visual information necessary for the comprehension of the content, shall be audio described.

(e) Display or presentation of alternate text presentation or audio descriptions shall be user-selectable unless permanent.

iv. 508 Section 1194.31 Functional performance criteria. (Source: United States Access Board, Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology, http://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/section-508-standards)

(a) At least one mode of operation and information retrieval that does not require user vision shall be provided, or support for assistive technology used by people who are blind or visually impaired shall be provided.

(b) At least one mode of operation and information retrieval that does not require visual acuity greater than 20/70 shall be provided in audio and enlarged print output working together or independently, or support for assistive technology used by people who are visually impaired shall be provided.

(c) At least one mode of operation and information retrieval that does not require user hearing shall be provided, or support for assistive technology used by people who are deaf or hard of hearing shall be provided.

(d) Where audio information is important for the use of a product, at least one mode of operation and information retrieval shall be provided in an enhanced auditory fashion, or support for assistive hearing devices shall be provided.

(e) At least one mode of operation and information retrieval that does not require user speech shall be provided, or support for assistive technology used by people with disabilities shall be provided.

(f) At least one mode of operation and information retrieval that does not require fine motor control or simultaneous actions and that is operable with limited reach and strength shall be provided.

The Contractor shall follow all other United States Access Board, Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology, http://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/section-508-standards, as needed to developed products for the ITS Joint Program Office.

4. The following shall be evaluated and tested to meet Section 508 Standards.

i. Tables – All tables shall require the following:

1. Width, border, cellspacing, and cellpadding elements

2. Summary element

3. Include row and column headers. Create clear and concise headers that assist the reader in identifying segmentation of data in the table.

4. Start row and column headings in the first left-hand column of the tables.

Apply the appropriate row and column headers to simple tables.

5. Complex tables have ID and header attributes to associate the data cells with the column and row headers.

6. Apply row and column header elements to simple tables.

7. Generate tables with a logical layout based on rows and columns. Orient tables so they are read from left to right, and top to bottom.

8. Acronyms shall be spelled out in a caption, row and column headers.

ii. Images – All images shall require the following:

1. Width and Height elements

2. Caption

3. Alternative text descriptions – the description shall describe the image. A long description file (“longdesc” element) shall be created for complex images that require a very detail description. The file shall take the user back to the starting point of the image.

4. An image of a table image shall have a 508 HTML equivalent table.

5. An image shall be clear and sharp.

6. A source shall be listed for non FHWA images and permission has been obtained from the source by email. A file must be delivered to the ITS Joint Program Office detailing permission to use the image.

7. Acronyms shall be spelled out in captions and any text listed within the image.

b. Hyperlinks

1. Active and map to the correct content.

2."FHWA Exit Door (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/exit.cfm?link=)" is applied to all links that are going to non-government web sites (anything other than a federal, state or local government).

3. Hyperlinks display as the fully qualified URL, i.e., http://www.fhwa.dot.gov, and not www.fhwa.dot.gov.

c. Footnotes

1. Footnotes shall be link to the footnote and take the user back to the original starting point. A “title” element shall apply to each link.

d. Web pages shall conform to the Minimum Requirements for FHWA Web Pages.

The Contractor shall submit a detailed conformance report showing all requirements have been tested to meet the Minimum Requirements for FHWA Web Pages and Section 508 Requirements. The ITS Joint Program Office shall hold “the Contractor” accountable to make sure the products meet the requirements. If the Minimum Requirements for FHWA Web Pages and Section 508 Requirements are not met, the ITS Joint Program Office has the right to refuse the product until the requirements are met and at the Contractor expense.