36 CFR Part 1194 - Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Final Standards and Guidelines (with amendments issued through Jan. 2018)

E205 Electronic Content

E205.1 General.

Electronic content shall comply with E205.

E205.2 Public Facing.

Electronic content that is public facing shall conform to the accessibility requirements specified in E205.4.

E205.3 Agency Official Communication.

Electronic content that is not public facing shall conform to the accessibility requirements specified in E205.4 when such content constitutes official business and is communicated by an agency through one or more of the following:

A. An emergency notification;

B. An initial or final decision adjudicating an administrative claim or proceeding;

C. An internal or external program or policy announcement;

D. A notice of benefits, program eligibility, employment opportunity, or personnel action;

E. A formal acknowledgement of receipt;

F. A survey questionnaire;

G. A template or form;

H. Educational or training materials; or

I. Intranet content designed as a Web page.

EXCEPTION: Records maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) pursuant to Federal recordkeeping statutes shall not be required to conform to the Revised 508 Standards unless public facing.

E205.4 Accessibility Standard.

Electronic content shall conform to Level A and Level AA Success Criteria and Conformance Requirements in WCAG 2.0 (incorporated by reference, see 702.10.1).

EXCEPTION: Non-Web documents shall not be required to conform to the following four WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria: 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks, 2.4.5 Multiple Ways, 3.2.3 Consistent Navigation, and 3.2.4 Consistent Identification.

E205.4.1 Word Substitution when Applying WCAG to Non-Web Documents.

For non-Web documents, wherever the term “Web page” or “page” appears in WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA Success Criteria and Conformance Requirements, the term “document” shall be substituted for the terms “Web page” and “page”. In addition, in Success Criterion in 1.4.2, the phrase “in a document” shall be substituted for the phrase “on a Web page”.