Play 3: Develop a Section 508 Accessibility Roadmap

An effective agency Section 508 Program can identify and manage risks, gain management support, and implement corrective changes to agency policies, processes, and technologies to ensure Section 508 compliance. After you gauge the maturity of your Section 508 Program (see Play 2), you should develop a Section 508 accessibility roadmap to identify key agency activities and a phased approach to reach the next level of maturity. An accessibility roadmap will help set goals and priorities, and provide a framework for sustained improvement. Ensuring compliance requires leadership accountability at all levels, so it’s important to gain the support of leadership in developing this roadmap.

Key Questions

What are your Section 508 Program goals?
What are the key challenges and opportunities that require resources to strengthen the effectiveness of your Section 508 Program?
Do you have a comprehensive plan that addresses how you will improve the maturity of your Section 508 Program, and the overall accessibility of your digital services and technology portfolio?
Does your plan address human capital and funding needs for Section 508 compliance activities and additional support needed from other groups within the agency?
How can your agency include Section 508 compliance in executive-level and IT leadership performance plans?
How often do you conduct executive-level briefings on digital accessibility to help maintain leadership engagement?

Checklists

This checklist guides agencies in assessing readiness, developing a Section 508 strategic plan, establishing policies and teams, ensuring technology and procurement meet accessibility standards, tracking issues and training needs, budgeting, and monitoring conformance through metrics, audits, and risk management.

Table 1: Play 3 Basic Checklist
Item	Actions
	Assess the organization’s readiness to adopt planned changes and develop an approach to build adoption for the plan.
	Communicate your plan to key stakeholders to get approval and support.
	Define your Section 508 Program challenges and opportunities: Identify technology that is and is not conformant with Section 508 standards. Identify organizational challenges (policies, processes, training, tools, staffing, etc.).
	Develop an iterative plan to address priorities and gaps in policy, processes, tools and resources: With input from your program maturity assessment, define goals and priorities—see Play 2. Develop/refine your agency accessibility policy to establish authorities, roles, responsibilities, and expectations—see Play 4. Establish a Section 508 Program team—see Play 5. Ensure technology requirements and design activities address Section 508 requirements and the needs of users with disabilities—see Play 7. Ensure solicitations properly include accessibility requirements, and validate vendor product accessibility claims—see Play 8. Ensure developers and electronic content authors design and develop technology that conforms to the Section 508 standards—see Play 9. Validate and verify that digital services and technology solutions conform to the Section 508 standards—see Play 10. Track, prioritize, and resolve accessibility issues and complaints—see Play 11. Identify and meet training and communications needs—see Play 12.
	Estimate and prioritize budget requirements. Budget for key expenses, including Section 508 Program staff, as well as conformance testing and tracking tools.
	Identify target milestones.

Table 2: Play 3 Advanced Checklist
	Task Resources
	Define agency controls for ensuring policy requirements are addressed. Determine what metrics you will use to track and monitor conformance to standards, policies, and procedures for ensuring Section 508 conformance. Develop an audit plan to verify conformance.
	Define approved methods agency staff must use to implement Section 508 requirements and the official methods, tools, and processes that must be used to check validated conformance. For example, using the DHS Trusted Tester methodology for manual web accessibility validation.
	Develop policy requirements for defining, budgeting, and implementing an alternative means for non-conformant solutions.
	Develop a risk management process that includes risk planning, assessment, and reporting to inform ongoing discussions with executive management regarding accessibility priorities.
	Review and revise accessibility policy and standards to keep pace with regulatory, organizational, agency process, and technology changes.
	Review existing agency technology roadmaps to assess the ability of your existing Section 508 Program to support agency adoption of new and emerging technology.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

This section outlines Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track and measure accessibility testing, remediation, and overall Section 508 conformance across web, intranet, and enterprise ICT solutions.

Generic KPI: By QX FY2X, create a new 3-year-strategic plan that includes adherence to ICT accessibility core values as a key goal/priority for the organization.

Generic KPI: In FY2X, include SMART, Level 3-5, accessibility-related performance metrics in the CXO’s performance plan and track accordingly.