2007 PhD Thesis Final Revised.pdf - Curtin University

of Federal government online information and various state and territory-based
legislation addresses state and territory-based online accessibility issues. Legislation
and policy are currently neutral in terms of listing specific technologies within the
policy guidelines.
4.4.2 United States framework
Prior to 1990, the USA did not have any specific legislation that addressed issues of
discrimination towards people with disabilities. The ADA was designed to rectify
this issue by providing a framework to prevent discrimination against individuals
with disabilities throughout society (Mondak, 2000). The US Congress believed that
the introduction of this legislation would break a number of artificial barriers and
give people legal recourse if a discriminatory situation were to arise.
The ADA contained five major sections examining employment, public
services, public accommodations, telecommunications and miscellaneous issues
(United States Department of Justice, 2002). In relation to practical concerns, these
sections of the ADA have resulted in technological improvements such as the
provision of Braille dots on Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) and government
documents becoming available in alternative formats. The need for accessible
communication also extended to the Internet with a need for US government web
sites to be ADA compliant (Waddell, 2002). The main disability and IT-related
pieces of legislation were implemented at a Federal level and included the ADA and
the Rehabilitation Act (RA), 1973. The RA Section 508, contains specific IT
legislation for people with disabilities. Unlike Australian legislation, the US
legislation referred specifically to IT products and services in the IT legislation.
The Section 508 legislation complemented the ADA and received significant
attention. In 1998, the US Congress amended the RA to require Federal agencies to
make their electronic and IT devices accessible to people with disabilities. The
Section 508 amendment was designed to go further than the inferred requirements of
the ADA by specifically targeting IT barriers and encouraging the development of
accessibility-based technological products (United States Federal Government,
1998). The other primary difference between Section 508 and the rest of the ADA
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