To:

From:

Date:

Re: Accessibility of [Organization name ]Web site

The [organization name ] Web site at [URL] is not fully accessible to people who have disabilities. Critical accessibility problems should be resolved as soon as possible.

A Web site may be considered accessible if persons who have disabilities can use the site as effectively as persons who do not have disabilities can do so.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, published by the World Wide Web Consortiumís Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) in May 1999 are a widely recognized international standard for accessibility. The WAI Guidelines and related documents are available at http://www.w3.org/wai.

For relevant federal legislation and other rulings, see, e.g., http://www.disabilities.gov/CSS/thirdlevel.asp?intCategoryId=8&intSubCatego (information ryId=39 (this site provides information about the access requirements in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, etc.) and http://www.disabilities.gov/CSS/thirdlevel.asp?intCategoryId=8&intSubCategoryId=37 (provides information about the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (DEA), and other legislation relevant to education).

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines comprise 17 guidelines. Under each guideline are a number of checkpoints divided into three priority levels. Priority 1 issues are essential for accessibility; Priority 1 errors make it a certainty that some users with disabilities will be unable to access the site and its resources. Priority 2 errors mean that some users with disabilities will be able to use the site only with difficulty. Priority 3 errors mean that the site may not be as convenient as possible for some persons with disabilities.

To evaluate the site, we used BOBBY, a program developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) and widely employed for this purpose. BOBBY compares the HTML source code from which Web pages are generated against the checkpoints contained in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It produces a report organized by priority levels.

I used the most recent version of BOBBY (version 3.2), available for free download at http://www.cast.org/bobby/.

Automated tools can identify only a limited subset of possible problems with certainty. Therefore, the BOBBY report also lists potential problems that require human judgment.

BOBBY identified [number] instances of the [number of separate P1 errors listed ] Priority 1 accessibility errors listed below:

• [list errors individually]

In addition, BOBBY has identified [number of items listed under "User Checks"] items where human judgment is needed to determine whether or not an accessibility error exists:

• [list of items under "User Checks"]

The items above may or may not be problems on your site. Your organization will need to determine which items must be reviewed, then determine what remedies (if any) should apply.

Even when automated tools accurately identify accessibility errors, such tools cannot effectively determine the impact of accessibility errors on actual users. The following is an attempt to do so.

I visited the [site name ]at [URL] on [date], in search of [material]. I used [browser and version] on a [computer type and model] running [operating system, version xxx] and [assistive technology, version].

[Describe experience, explaining how accessibility problems named above affected your experience as a user, e.g., how they impacted your ability to locate the desired material, etc.]