HOW FAIRFAX COUNTY BROUGHT OUR OUTREACH MATERIALS INTO COMPLIANCE WITH ADA INFORMATION ACCESS:

WHAT IS THE ADA? The ADA is a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits, under certain circumstances, discrimination based on disability. It was enacted by the U.S. Congress in It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush, and later amended with changes effective January 1, Federal government agencies, and local governments that receive federal funds, must comply with Section 508 of the ADA. This section mandates that Electronic and Information Technology be accessible to people with disabilities.

WHAT DOES WEB ACCESSIBILITY MEAN?  Not all users have the same motor, sensory or cognitive skills.  Making web content accessible means these users have the same access to information as any person without a disability.  We are making web pages, images, and documents accessible to the widest possible audience. In the context of the Fairfax County web site, people who use assistive technology, such as reading software, can fully access the content of the web site. The guidelines apply to:  Html pages and their content (such as videos)  Downloadable documents and forms (such as PDF)

 One way of posting a document, such as a form, brochure, or newsletter, to a website is to make it a PDF.  At a basic level, an accessible PDF means people using screen readers and other assistive devices will be able to access the information in the PDF. PORTABLE DOCUMENT FORMAT (PDF)

FAIRFAX COUNTY POSITION Under a settlement with the Department of Justice, all county agencies had a deadline for ensuring that existing PDFs on the web were compliant by December 31,  If documents were not compliant, they had to be taken off.  After that date, only compliant PDFs could be uploaded to the web.  The county has chosen to interpret the rule in the strictest sense.

TWO OPTIONS Because DPWES has a large number of forms and publications, we have hundreds of PDFs on the county web site We could make every PDF on the DPWES web site accessible. Making PDFs accessible is a time-consuming and difficult process. We could pull the PDFs from our web site and present the material in an HTML web page.

Immediate impact  We pulled all of our PDF brochures from the website  We then made sure the information was located within the text of basic HTML pages.  For example, we removed the brochure about fluorescent bulbs – but expanded on the fluorescent bulb page. The same thing held true for the County collection customer brochure and other publications. WHAT DID THIS MEAN FOR SOLID WASTE?

PDF on Web SiteSame Content in HTML FROM PDF TO HTML

ACTION TAKEN - RESULTS  We did get a few calls/complaints from people initially who had referenced the brochures in the past and couldn’t find them anymore. For the most part, however, this died down almost immediately.  People seemed to understand that we were simply complying with legal guidelines. In addition, we had print brochures available that we could mail to them (if they wanted them to distribute at a meeting or similar.)  Most importantly, we have found people want the information, and are less concerned with how it is packaged.

The biggest reaction we had was in removing our recycling flyers. However, the decision to remove it was not solely based on accessibility. Instead, it was because management decided we should not get involved in telling people what was NOT acceptable; particularly as their hauler might turn around and tell them that it WAS acceptable.

MAKING DOCUMENTS ACCESSIBLE  New Document – create it in Word. Make sure it is accessible in Word, then convert to PDF. Word has a accessibility checker.  First create in Word and make accessible then  Create the PDF, and make that accessible (including Tab Order).  Existing PDF – setting Tab Order very important. People with accessibility challenges will often use the keyboard to navigate through a document. You have to make sure they can tab through the document in the correct order.  Training Staff  About web accessibility  How to make Web accessible documents in Word  Special classes

THE FUTURE  We will continue to produce brochures, but they will not be posted as PDFs on the web site.  We will look at ensuring that all brochure content appears on the web site.  The county has an HTML accessibility checker for the internal and external websites.  Staff is receiving training on how to set up new Word documents so that they will more easily convert to ADA-compliant PDFs later.