508 Compliancy and Xara XTreme: some help please

[rafsgrafx]

Greetings all.

THE QUESTION:
Is Xara structured to compose a fully functional 508 compliant site?

SOME DETAILS:
I'm a Visual Information Specialist for a U.S. federal government agency. I might be taking over some duties involving our intranet site.

508 Compliancy is mandated for all federal website in order to accomodate access for users with certain impairments or special needs.

A functional site doesn't necessarily make it 508 compliant. There's a level of code and script working under the hood that enable a site to meet compliancy standards.

http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?...=content&ID=12

Many government agencies use Adobe Dreamweaver; claiming it to be the industry standard. Other "techies" rely on strict HTML coding. Although I have a very basic knowledge base in HTML; it's definately NOT my bag.

Having used Dreamweaver to some extent; as a graphic designer I find the ease and flexibility of Xara would be my weapon of choice.

Xara and 508 Compliancy: A match made in heaven IF I can provide management with some compelling evidence and documentation for the purchase of Xara Xtreme Pro for the purchase of the software.

Your input will be greatly appreciated.

[Soquili]

I'm not an expert on 508 compliance, but I think that using Alt Text for your images will make any web page meet the basic requirements.

Text readers will read the Alt Text for people that are visually impaired. Modern web browsers offer zoom page so that it can be viewed at a large size.

I believe that Dreamweaver and any other software for making website 508 compliant require use of 3rd party widgets for braille and other facilities for people with disabilities. Xtreme 5 and Web Designer placeholders allow including widgets.

[rafsgrafx]

Thanks.

I'm just starting to get my feet wet on this but what you say about "Alt text / tag" makes alot of sense.

I'll pursue this further before I pitch it to the big muckity-mucks and bean counters.

[Soquili]

You are welcome.

I'm moving this thread to the Web Designer/Xtreme forum, where all web related questions should be posted.