>> Welcome. Good afternoon and welcome to this Section 508 anniversary webcast being
hosted today by the Information Technology Technical Assistance and Training Center.
Or, ITTATC. I am Julie Carroll. And I'm with the law, health policy and disability
center at the University of Iowa College of law. I'm also director of government and
industry relations for ITTATC. I'll moderate this webcast along with my comoderator
here, Michael Morris, who is also with the law health policy and disability center at
the University of Iowa? Iowa. Today we will be talking about the implementation of
Section 508, thus far. This being the one year anniversary since the Section 508 rule
went into effect. It's hard to believe that it was only a year ago that we were here,
talking about how to prepare for Section 508. So we thought it would be useful and
interesting to come back today and hear from some of the folks who have been directly
involved in the Section 508 implementation, and see what Pearls of wisdom they have for
us and some lessons learned. So I think we will all learn something today that will
help those of us who continue to work in this area. Before I turn to our panelists, I
would like to give an overview of the format for the webcast today. First of all, we
are scheduled to run from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., and that is EST. The first hour we will
hear from each of our panelists, and then the second how are we would like to have
questions from the audience. And you can direct those to any or all of the panelists.
There are four ways that you can submit your questions to us, so get your notetakers
ready. You can phone in questions and the phone number is 703-961-9250, extension 226.
You can fax questions to 703-961-9255. And there is also an e-mail link and a chat
link, you'll see there on your screen, if you'd like to submit your questions to us
that way. I will repeat these numbers a little later on, if you didn't catch them, so
be ready with your notetakers. If you experience any technical difficulties today,
either connecting with us or getting your questions to us, you can call and talk to an
engineer here at the studios and that number is 703-961-9250, expense -- extension 223.
Now, let us turn to our panel. Our first panelist today is Richard Miller. Richard is a
procurement manager with the Department of Treasury. And has worked in the area of
information technology procurement and E-commerce for many years, now handles Section
508 issues for the Department of Treasury. And I think it's interesting that if you go
back a ways in Richard's background, you'll find he also worked directly at one point
with people with disabilities. So, I think it's no wonder that under Richard's
leadership, the Department of Treasury has been one of the more progressive agencies in
implementing Section 508. Richard, thank you for coming today.

>> RICHARD MILLER: Thank you. And I appreciate the ability to come to the webcast on
behalf of ITTATC. I'm speaking first of all from a procurement perspective within the
trerb rear department. As everyone is aware, Federal Government is a huge organization,
with close to 3 million contractors, military employees, as well as civilian employees.
So, my scope of the comments are rather limited in that respect. Treasury department
has some of the most significant and well-known bureaus and organizations of the
Federal Government. For example, the customs department, the IRS, alcohol, tobacco and
firearms, and there is the Mint and bureau of engraving and printing and several
others. We have in the department approximately 150,000 employees. And these employees,
in performance of their duties, acquire about 3.4 billion dollars worth of acquisitions
in any given year. That is about 45,000 transactions, as well as about 580,000 purchase
card transactions. So you can appreciate the scope of buying that occurs in the
treasury department on an annual basis that has to take into account Section 508
compliance. The philosophical view that we have at treasury on Section 508 is basically
that the Federal Government through Section 508 is dealing with increasing the access
of those with disabilities to information and data of the Federal Government. Doing
this through information technology buying. We see a treasury, our role, to comply with
508 because it is a rule, it is a law, it is a statute. But beyond that, it enables the
American technological industry to come to a higher standard of enabling information to
be accessible by those with disabilities. Of course, the U.S. industry, IT industry, is
the world leader. So, if there is a significant impact on that technology through this
federal law, then as a result worldwide there will be greater access both in terms of
communications as well as basic accessibility and productivity of persons with
disabilities. We can try to think of section 5068 pretty much as a curb cut, so to
speak. The curb, traditionally, for someone in a wheelchair, for example, is
prohibitive in terms of crossing the street or getting on to let's say the information
highway. The curb cut is Section 508 in that all it does is enable the person who has a
slistive -- assistive technology, such as a wheelchair to access that highway or that
mainstream of federal information and data. The challenge is that we have in treasury
not the least of which is training of the employees. Training 150,000 employees for a
rather complicated set of regulations, such as these represented by section 5068, is
not an easy job. Training is constant in the Federal Government and in treasury, on
Section 508 as well as other things. We are always competing for training resources.
One thing that we have done in treasury is through the IRS and their resources, they
have developed a computer based training program. It's extensive in dealing with both
management responsibilities, procurement responsibilities, and the basic
responsibilities of the government employee to know about Section 508 and also to do
what they can to support it. The complications that sometimes arise in trying to reach
everybody very quickly for training them, with Section 508 relates to varying
interpretations of Section 508. You also have many different people performing many
different roles in complying and conforming with Section 508. Finally, you have
technical expertise required at times in order to understand what Section 508
compliance is, and that can be complicating because not everyone is IT savvy. Product
verification in terms of conformance can also be an issue because of multiple
variations on interpretations. Measures that we have also taken up to this point are:
Development of a website, actually, two websites. One at the CIO office and one in
treasury procurement that can be used to access 508 information for training purposes.
Beyond that, I have personally trained about 500 employees across treasury, key
employees who relate to procurement and customer organizations as well as CIO offices.
We also took the step of including on purchase card statements a notification of the
need to follow Section 508 and referred every purchase card holder back to the website
for 508 for specific directions. This way, every card holder in our organization,
approximately 20,000, were notified in one month's time of the need to follow 508. The
GSA as well developed a computer based training program of an excellent quality that is
available at a very rich Section 508 website, which is: Www.section508.gov. And then
finally, in my interdepartmental responsibilities relating to electronic commerce
systems of the Federal Government, we have been able to post Section 508 notices for
vendors on both the central contractor registration system and the prolapse system of
the Small Business Administration and the fed Bis Ops site of the GSA. These sites
contact approximately 200,000 vendors. There is a substantial division of labor related
to Section 508 within the treasury department. The first person to encounter Section
508 in terms of the procurement process is the customer. The customer is that
individual who has some kind of need that requires a purchase in the Federal Government
to perform their job. That individual must assess the applicability of Section 508, as
well as determine what technical provisions of Section 508 are applicable to their
particular product that they need to buy. Then they must determine in the marketplace
whether there is a fully conforming product that will meet their need. And if not then
they have to complete various forms to certify that they completed their task of
extensive searching, and all of this gets presented to the procurement individual.
However, before the procurement process is finished, they have to develop what we call
an advertisement or solicitation that gets issued to the public for industry to respond
to with an offer. And then those offers get evaluated relative to Section 508. A
product or a company receives an award, a product is received, and then finally the
customer evaluates whether the product truly conforms with Section 508 provisions. The
procurement office role is that of assisting of customer with understanding Section
508, completing various certifications and determinations, as well as doing the actual
procurement process that results in acquisition of the product. And then finally the
procurement file becomes the file of record for the documents substantiating the
compliance. The chief information officer, or the information technology units within
treasury assist both the customer as well as the procurement specialist in achieving
Section 508 conformance and compliance. And then the human resources office plays the
role of receiving complaints. The basic procurement process, I'll elaborate briefly,
but it is one of refining the definition of a requirement, or something that needs to
be bought, followed biasesing what 508 provisions are essential to that product and
need to be sought in the marketplace, performing the market research, determining
whether a fully compliant product is in the marketplace. And if not, identifying those
that are at least most compliant in the marketplace. And then advertising that the
customer wants to acquire X product, evaluating the offers that come in, receiving the
product, and finally assessing conformance. Sometimes we find instances where
procurement customers and procurement offices and industry in making their offers,
don't agree on the interpretation of Section 508. And what we recommend is, first off,
that both the customer and the procurement specialist attempt to instill a team
approach in working out the issues. That might result in their need to appeal to
agencies specialists or experts related to Section 508. These might be technical
experts or these might be policy experts, such as myself. From there, if these experts
don't have the answer, and sometimes we don't, we would appeal to the access board. The
access board wrote the regulations on Section 508, and to a large degree we consider
whatever they say as final on these interpretations. We strongly support the vendor
product accessibility template, the notices that I mentioned that we have insured are
on the websites of major federal procurement systems, all refer to the vendor product
template because the importance there is that as industry is able to notify through
these websites, these template posting, the public and the Federal Government the level
of compliance of their products, there is less misunderstanding and a better ability of
the Federal Government to buy the products that it needs to for the American public as
well as the federal employees that use them. Eventually we hope to see, from industry,
as the standards are applied to Section 508, eventually to see a logo that might
indicate or would indicate definitely from an industry standards perspective a full
Section 508 conformance every products, to make it easier for both the government and
the public to recognize products that are accessible. And with that, I thank you very
much, Julie.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Thank you. I have a few follow-up question, if I may. Maybe I'll go
in reverse order. Who do you think should be testing and applying this logo that you
said you would like to see in the future?

>> RICHARD MILLER: Well, I think it should be industry that would do this on a
voluntary basis, probably through industry associations that, as a consortium, might
agree as to what those standards should be.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Have you come across the situation yet where one product meets some
accessibility features, and another product has different accessibility features, and
have to choose between the two? And how would you do that?

>> RICHARD MILLER: As I mentioned before, I'm in a policy shop so I'm not doing direct
buying. But the feedback that I do hear from treasury buyers is to the effect that that
does happen. The question is posed to me occasionally. And the response is that the
customer who has that need, the requirement for that specific product, as well as the
procurement specialist, need to carefully look at the provisions that are satisfied, to
make sure that the product that gets the award, that is actually bought, meets the
needs of the end-users best. Now, in that particular instance you might have one
product that satisfies nine technical provisions of 508. Another one satisfies five
technical provisions. It is possible the one satisfying the least conditions would be
selected, because the end-user needs those more.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Okay.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Richard, let me ask two big picture questions? questions. First is,
as we opened this webcast we are at a point a year from when the standards were first
published. Where did you think treasury would be at this point and how well do you
think treasury has met that expectation?

>> RICHARD MILLER: Well, treasury doesn't operate in a vacuum. Treasury, as part of the
Federal Government, is moving forward with 508 compliance as quickly as possible. We
did provide a jump start for treasury in that our CIO office and especially the
procurement office, in light of some limited guidance on how to proceed, we developed
our own guidance and implemented it on Section 508. Where we are right now, I believe,
is at a point that is quite satisfying to treasury in terms of its implementation of
Section 508. Where we think we would like to go with it, there is a distance yet to go.
This is something that is so pervasive, Section 508, that only when ever employee has a
very thorough understanding of what it means to be a person with a disability will you
actually have the kind of cultural change and the proper environment to insure that 508
really does happen.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: And as a follow-up question, from the perspective of the direction
that vendors seem to be going and, as you mentioned, a figure of over  $3 billion in
procurement just within the treasury department, any advice you would offer vendors in
terms of direction or increasing expectations around accessibility of product or
services?

>> RICHARD MILLER: Well, the only comment I could make would be a general one, which is
we strongly support companies to be very aggressive about Section 508. Even in our
training we point out, to both our federal staff and the customers who attend, that we
see Section 508 as a significant social legislation that enhances the capability of
individuals with disabilities to produce in the workforce as well. So that vendors can
look at this as taking a lead globally in the marketplace for accessibility. So as much
as you might hear occasional industry comments about the burden of Section 508, it
gives them a global market advantage that we tend to hear a little less about
sometimes. And so we strongly encourage them to pursue it.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Great. Thank you.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Richard, are you hearing anything about complaints being filed or
litigation within your agency or other agencies?

>> RICHARD MILLER: Thank you for asking that question. No. We're hearing next to
nothing in the way of complaints. Again, no litigation, to my knowledge. I do sit on
one major interdepartmental Section 508 group, and occasionally we ask ourselves the
question: Has anyone heard of anything? So far, it's relatively quiet.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Great. How about the cost of products? Have you noticed any increase
in the cost of products as a result of Section 508?

>> RICHARD MILLER: Again, to my knowledge, no one has really done a study of this
recently. And within treasury, we don't have any studies that can show an issue of cost
increase. However, the fact that I'm not hearing complaints about the cost of Section
508, I consider significant and feedback of a Tacit kind that it must not be a major
issue.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Good to hear. Thank you. Let's turn now to one of our industry
representatives. We have with us Marney Beard. Marney is the manager of the
accessibility program office for Sun Microsystems and handles Section 508 companywide
for Sun. Marney was also one of the people who served on the advisory committee, the
original advisory committee that helped the access board develop guidelines for
accessible IT. And I notice, too, that Marney, if you go back in her background also
worked directly at one point with people with disabilities. So, Marney, thank you for
coming.

>> MARNEY BEARD: Thank you, Julie. Thanks for this opportunity to describe Sun's work
and to contribute to this important collaboration among industry, government and users.
I have three topics today. First a quick overview of the company. Second, how we
organized internally to respond to Section 508. And finally, our technology directions
in support of accessibility. Sun Microsystems was founded in 1982, with the focus on
open network computing. In 1986, Sun coined the phrase "the network is the computer"
and that continues to reflect the company's core philosophy. Sun's mission is to be the
number one provider of product, technologies and services for enabling the net economy.
Words like "reliability, scalability, compatibility" are taken seriously in our product
design efforts. Most people who know anything about Sun consider us to sell high end
work stations and server, that's true. We sell high powered, expensive, never fail,
mission critical hardware systems. We sell smaller, mid range and high volume machine,
too. And we also develop a wide array of software products and technologies. Solaris is
the leading development environment. Our software drives not only the great banks of
servers in the data centers of the world, but also the cell phones used by millions of
people who never saw a glass house or a raised floor. Today Sun has 39,000 employees in
1706 countries. We are very geographically disbursed. Our engineering work on
accessibility, which I'll describe later, is done by teams in Ireland, jerm knee,
China, and India, in addition to the U.S. So Sun is a big diverse company. How we
organized ourselves to deliver what our federal customers need? From the outset, we
tried to build on existing policies, practices and internal structures within Sun. We
have created some new organizations, include the accessibility program office. We did
not add lots of people. In most cases, the people who are working to bring our products
into line with Section 508 have simply added that responsibility to those job
descriptions. The tiny team of people who were focused on accessibility for the past
few years have been full time educators and I'm happy to say it's paying off within
Sun. As Julie mentioned, that original tiny team had the big advantage of having
participated in the access board's development of the final rule, the 67 standards that
really define Section 508. We have also been part of the accessibility forum, so we
have had the benefit of discussion with the access board, the Department of Justice,
and the many agencies who shared their experts -- experiences at the forum's public
conferences. How do we develop our internal processes? To a significant extent we
started from the customer's point of view and adapted some of our program management
and development activities from there. As Richard mentioned, Sun like other system
vendors, developed a set of product assessments. So that the information on our
products can be provided in a manageable format to customers who request it. This
customer ready information is compiled by our federal contracting group and the program
office, based on reports and consultation with Sun's product teams. These reports are
built from a detailed examination of each specific product. The program office provides
consultation and guidance to insure that the product teams, who of course are the
people who have the real expertise on how things work, ensure that they can interpret
Section 508 requirements in a consistent way across Sun. Sun's work on accessibility
has strong support from the top of the company. But still, achieving this consistency
has been a challenge, because Sun does not operate in a strongly top down or
centralized way. Some organizations have been in place for years. For example, some of
our hardware groups and our Solaris software team are longstanding organizations, so
their processes are solidly in place. Other groups, especially those that have been
affected by acquisitions, and partnerships with other companies, have less standardized
practices. So it's been very important to us to acknowledge this diversity and to work
with the structures and policies in place, creating new process says as little as
possible. Not surprisingly, we have been effective largely through communication among
the various groups. We have assembled a core group of contributor, mostly program
manager, representing all of Sun's product lines. This group meets regularly to share
problems and successes and to leverage expertise gained in pockets of the company so we
make progress on all fronts. As much as possible, we considered hardware, software, and
services such as on line technical support, simultaneously. On the hardware side, we
are fortunate in that Sun has had a very strong human factors and industrial design
team for many years and our hardware controls, things like physical switches and
display button, largely met accessibility requirements before section 5089 came into
the picture. Across the wide variety of software interfaceness Sun's products, the
story is more mixed. Command line interfaces are available in virtually all of our
system administration facilities, and the text based nature of the command line
interface makes it quite easy for AT to provide access. Some of our older graphical
user interfaces have a bigger challenges, which is one of the many reasons that newer
Sun products use the Java foundation classes in their user interfaces. We are
developing more and more Web based products so accessible HTML is important. Here is an
example of valuable leverage that we achieved across the company. Some of the
documentation groups developed common guidelines for requirements such as alternate
text and they shared content creation templates for the tools that they use in
generating information which crosses organizational boundaries successfully. And that's
not as common as one would like in a big company. Let me turn now to talk a bit about
Sun's software technology strategy, as it relates to accessibility. As I described
earlier, Sun delivers hardware products, software products, and technology that is
built on by others. Java technology is a good example. It's a programming language but
it's also a set of tools for development of products that run on any desktop you like,
on any server, which you productbly can't see, and on any number of consumer devices.
It ranges from large to very small. Sun is committed to accessibility not only in our
own products, but also, and perhaps more importantly, in the technologies that we
support. We support development and innovation by other company, by research
organizations and by individuals. We started building accessibility under the Java
platform five years ago. In some ways, we were ahead of the game with Java. And with
developers and purchasers seeking ways to meet Section 508 now, we are now seeing the
use of Java accessibility grow. We are hearing more questions and more concerns from
users, and this is a very good thing. We absolutely welcome this attention. Even when
it comes from people who expect more from us than we may seem to have delivered. We
have taken a major step beyond Java accessibility as well. In the last 18 months, we
have initiated the design and development of an accessibility framework for the Gnome
open source desktop. And it's pronounced Gnome. It started among geeks, nom is becoming
more and more widely known. It's a rich graphical user environment that runs on Linux
and Unix. You can use it on PC like computers and powerful work stations from companies
like Sun? Sun. Gnome is open source, which means any competent software engineer can
acquire the source code, ad it prochlts and build expenses. Sun chose Gnome as the
future desktop for our own Solaris operating environment. For accessibility, it's
attractive for these reasons. It's a multiplatform desktop. People using this it nor
limited to any single vendors hardware or operating system. And Gnome is open source so
innovation can be initiated by anyone. It's not limited to a single vendors priority or
proprietary direction. Creating accessibility software environments is not ease sechlt
and we believe that creating alternatives and providing options can only increase the
opportunities for improvements. Sun's contribution to Gnome accessibility biltds on our
experience with the Java accessibility architecture. The driving principle has tone to
make it as easy as possible for the AT and the sochlt ware application to deliver the
alternative formgs of interaction needed by people with disabilities. We believe it's
possible to write accessible applications have little special attention to
accessibility. For example, just by requiring things like making the application fully
appear -- operable from the keyboard, which make life easier for lots of people,
independent of disabilities. We believe that given more support from the desktop
platform, AT can be much easier to develop and maintain especially across upgrades to
that underlying platform. So the main thrust of our approach is to provide a
comprehensive and reliable programming interface that receivers as a contract again the
assistive technology and the application. It makes it dead easy to provide standard
information such as the label of a field, or Bold text and makes it possible to provide
more refined information as well, such as the relationship between a total calculation
in a spread sheet and the cells that contribute to that total. To make our vision of
this contract approach come true, Sun is working closely with two development groups,
the University of Toronto and Baum, a German company, to provide key AT for Gnome.
First, we have an on scene keyboard to support users who can't use the physical
keyboard and mouse. Second, scene creeder, including Braille support. And third, a
screen magnifier for low vision users. Sun's own products will benefit from the
accessibility in Gnome and from the ATs that are being built to use it. In addition,
all of the application that is Sun delivers on Gnome will meet their side of this
contract, so that all of those applications will be usable with the assistive
technologies. I want to mention two applications in particular. NetScape and star
office. Sun is working closely with the Mazula open source effort to build
accessibility into the net scape browser. Like the Gnome work itself, this is one of
Sun's contribution toss a larger community. And we are confident that it will pay off
for everyone. Star office is Sun's slightly fancier version of the open office Suite of
desktop productivity kools tools another open source effort. All of the accessibility
underpinnings that we are buildings into star office are also coming in open office,
available for download at no charge. When will this all be available? This is not Sun's
private over the. So the uncoming vergings of Gnome depend primarily on the
collaboration of a whole community of developers. You should expect to hear more about
Gnome releases to come late they are year. To summarize, I've given you a high level
view of Sun Microsystems as a contractor to accessibility and supporter of Section 508.
We revised some of our swernl processes to insure that our products meet the
requirements that our federal customers expect. Just as internally, -- importantly, Sun
drives innovations in as of the ware development. We welcome your question, criticisms
and your contributions. Thank you.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Thank you, Marney. One of the things that we -- one of the questions
we hear quite a bit from industry has to do with product testing and evaluation. Often
we get the question how do I know when I have met Section 508 requirements? Have you
dealt with this at Sun and can you talk about how you're dealing with this?

>> MARNEY BEARD: This is a real challenge to deal with. Because the 67 standards that
make up the final rule have some gray areas and are open to some interpretation. So
they are not a technical specification. They are not a standard in that sense. What we
have done within Sun is to take advantage of some tools that we have developed
internally, such as the Java accessibility helper, that, as the name implies, helps a
software developer determine whether a jaif have a based application -- Java based
application meets the requirements. We also use, primarily for evaluating websites, we
use tools like BOBI, and building our capabilities and the use of these testing tools.
So, we use the tools that are available. But we readily acknowledge this is a difficult
area. It's hard to say we are absolutely certain that every requirement is met.

>> JULIE CARROLL: You mentioned a number of activities on the federal level that you've
been involved in. For example, the accessibility forum and you were on the original
advisory committee and I know you guys are active at CSUN, too. Do you have any advice
for a smaller company that might not have the resources to benefit from national
activities that would help them implement Section 508? If there are -- in the -- if
they are in the office and they need to learn all the things that you learn as you
travel.

>> MARNEY BEARD: That is a real challenge. I think I personally think that to some
extent the work of the accessibility forum can help smaller companies. Certainly there
is no Dearth of lists and websites and consultants who are building expertise and
providing that expertise to companies large and small. I think it's mostly a matter of
doing a lot of shopping on the Web.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Just one or two questions. First would be that, in the -- dealing
with the Federal Government, as Richard mentioned, it's a vast market. It's a market
that is in the tens of billions of dollars for IT purchasing. A question I have is from
the industry perspective there, as Richard mentioned, there are differences. Although
there is much effort at a federal level to close those differences between the
different approaches that federal agencies are taking. From a vendor perspective, I'll
give you the unusual opportunity -- any advice for the Federal Government that would
make the role of large or smaller companies easier in their desire to be responsive to
508 accessibility standards?

>> MARNEY BEARD: I guess from Sun's point of view, the answer to that question is
engage the vendors in discussion of their products. And don't take blanket statements
of compliant, not compliant, that sort of thing, at face value. but rather ask about
the technological approach that the vendor has taken, ask about experiences that the
vendor has with people with disabilities actually using the product. Ask the disability
community for their own success stories.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: You mentioned that, for your company and many of the larger IT
companies, you're a global company. You have offices all over the world. You mentioned
partners, Canada, Germany. Can you give us any sense of to what degree or scope is
there an interest in IT accessibility in other countries, in terms of your development
and marketing of products all over the world?

>> MARNEY BEARD: I honestly wish that we had a stronger grip on that. I don't think we
are as well informed about the work outside -- about regulations and legislation
outside the U.S. as we would like to be. We are certainly aware in general of
activities in the U.K., in Portugal, Denmark, the ones that just spring to mind. My
hope, of course, is that other governments, both state governments within the U.S. and
international governments, will adopt 508 requirements pretty much as they are. Not
because they are easy to interpret or to meet, but because that gives us at least a
single difficult standard to meet instead of multiple difficult standards.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Right. And you mentioned also not just on the international front,
but the activities at a state level. The ITTATC project is also looking at the
development of IT accessibility products and services that will touch the state
marketplace.

>> MARNEY BEARD: Right.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: And I wondered, is there any specific strategies that your company
is using to stri to deal with -- to try to deal with the state marketplace and
particularly, again, great variance from state to state in terms of requirements, in
terms of their verification process, and even ultimately compliance even after
acquisition?

>> MARNEY BEARD: We don't have a lot of experience yet with varying requirements from
the states. What we have seen so far has been consistent with Section 508. So, our
experience to date has been that different states and large educational systems, like
the Community College system in California, are more like multiple federal agencies.
But, of course, that may change if people develop significantly different sets of
standards.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Thank you.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Thank you, Marney. Now we will turn to Lee Bateman. Lee is the
product program manager for Hewlett-Packard accessibility solutions. Prior to coming to
HP Lee worked for approximately 35 years in the area space industry and with the
Department of Defense. Lee now handles Section 508 issues for Hugh bet pack ard and has
in his background a period of working directly with people with disabilities. So Lee
thank you for joining us today.

>> LEE BATEMAN: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and also to meet
with these fine members of the panel. It's -- we share ideas and it's a good thing to
get together and Richard, I took your advice, I wrote it down here, about what we need
to do. I'd like to talk about four or five basic areas. First, the internal process
changes that we encountered at HP. Secondly, how is it working? Lessons learned and
what are the results? But prior to getting into that, I'd like to discuss do a brief
introduction on some things. 508 is not the end of the process. 508 is just the
beginning of the process. It's a good start, but we really need to do more from an
accessibility standpoint, from the vendor's viewpoint. We need to take our design
efforts for accessibility beyond that 508 boundary, to include all users. We need to
take the products and services past the daily use criteria, and the reason I say that
is the daily use criteria is a good thing for 508. And I don't want to Tarnish that.
But home users don't have the specialist with them to do the things that they need to
do, and we need to go out to that segment of the population. We need to make it
accessible to everyone, not just the federal employees. 508 does require some
modifications. You know, it's almost impossible to get a document the size of 508 and a
document with the impact of 508 perfect the first time. There are items that need
clarification, but generally it's a good approach and mechanism to accomplish
accessible designed products and it's a good baseline. Marney mentioned she was
involved with the development of the standard for 5086789 I think more industry input
should be required for future rewrites. And that might have been attempted during the
first version, but maybe as industry we were not as responsive to the plea as we should
have been. But I don't think that will happen in the future, because I think everyone
wants this to be a win/win situation. So I think industry and the vendors will answer
the call to come in and help with the 508. You know, the reason we need that is because
when you develop a requirement, you need to -- the requirement needs to be accepted on
both sides of the interface, what is going to be working there. And it needs to be
understood by both sides. So there can only be one interpretation. That is part of the
problem with 508, many people feel, is because there are several interpretations. But
if you have one interpretation and everybody agree, that does not mean that you can't
have more than one solution to satisfying that interpretation. And that's what is good
about 508. It allows for some creativity and some leeway for the engineers and design
experts to go out and experiment and become very, what is the word, creative in what
they're trying to do. 508 also has instilled an awareness of accessibility for products
and services throughout the government agencies. It created a desire to build products
that are more usable and accessible, but it instaild a desire by the government to
accommodate those employees who require accessibility with their IT equipment. And the
merger between HP and come pack has really strengthened our accessibility program. They
had a very aggressive accessibility program and the two companies had the same
philosophy concerning disability and we combined our strengths and strategies so we
have unique products and services with emphasis on the accessibility and usability. And
I use the terms interchangeable, the more we make the equipment accessible, the more
usable it is for the entire population. Internal process changes. HP has developed some
disability accessibility groups that have been, throughout the various divisions. One
such group, that was associated with the laser jet printer division, is a team called
DART, that concept has expanneded now as a virtual team for other divisions and product
segments. It's a multifaceted disciplined group of people, we have industrial design
people, software engineers, test people, human factor, hardware folks, firmware and
also marketing. And the divisions have been conducting audits to assist our integration
process of accessibility into the product life cycle of our products to go out and talk
to the various divisions and find out where does accessibility fall in your life cycle?
And not just ask a question and say are you doing this? And are you doing this? But if
they answer yes, say show me. Show me the documentation, what you're doing. Just don't
take a blank check and sign it. They are digging in and looking for that. And it's a
good thing, because it really provided some valuable insight to where some of our
divisions are, and what we need to do to bring everyone to the same level of
understanding for 508 and the same level of understanding of how do we get there. We
have conducted internal product audits, which I call a snapshot in time. It allows a
program manager or a product manager to see where his product sits in relationship to
508, so they can make corrections along towards the end of the product. These audits
are lined with the various product check points as they go through and sometimes it
will be four or five check points as they go through the product cycle. And then end up
with a final audit of the product. But it really gives the people a chance to
understand where they are and those audits that we bring in, the people who are working
on the product, we bring in the designers, some of the usability people and some of the
human factors people, so it's not done in a vacuum and we try to bring out the product
to make sure we are going down the right road. We conducted a lot of external testing
by third-party people to determine the status of some of our products and also to help
facilitate the information that goes in the VPA T for the use of the government
procurement people. And also to provide feedback on our internal processes, and we took
a lot of those test cases and we are taking those and putting them into our own
process. And we are trying to develop the internal processes to mainstream
accessibility testing into all of our testing flows right now. And that means that we
can take it -- take a set of test suites and run it through the whole process with the
product and we can treat it almost like a regulatory thing, such as an EM I, or RFI or
safety requirement from a philosophical standpoint, now a marketing one, but from a
philosophical standpoint, these are the things that we have to do to make sure our
product is saleable. And we also, with our processes and with their divisions, they
have a vision now, they are going beyond the 508 boundary. They are looking at things
that can be done that will help everyone. We have developed guidelines and we developed
training. Initially we developed a hard copy guideline which detailed all the 508
requirements, and how we as a company can satisfy them if provided insight into the
accessibility and how we designed to accommodate the 1194 requirements. It providesed
historical data, rationale and examples. Presently we are in the process of developing
a new product called a tool kit, and that should be out probably the end of August,
which is a web-based product and it contains much of the material from the hard copy
version, but it also provides many examples of how to design for the designers. And it
also includes a lot of information for the designers to determine what requirement
actually applies to their product they are working on. Training is also a big thing for
us and we are designing some training programs right now from a manage jeerial
training, awareness and design training, to help with all of the people involved with
designing the products and services. And we also, it has instilled better
communications between all of the divisions. Right now, we have a quarterly meeting
with all of our division sponsor, we have bimonthly, and by weekly status meetings
within the divisions. Product teams are aware of accessibility and the responsibility
towards accessibility. And that's a big change, letting them understand what the
responsibility is towards accessibility. We need to keep -- we teach Rkeep that in
front of them through presentations, participation and design reviews and status
meeting on all of our products. How is it working at HP? It's greatly increased the
awareness of accessibility at all of the levels. A year, year and a half ago, if you
asked what accessibility was, you might get 10 different answers from 10 different
people. Now we all seem to be singing in unison maybe off key but we are still singing
the same song. Designers from a software, firmware, hardware, continue to explore new
and better ways to make products accessibility. It's instilled a good feeling, a sense
of accomplishment to say why don't we do this or that? It's almost like competition
amongst designer, who can come up with the best product. Marketing personnel are really
coming onboard and this is a good thing, because they are getting -- they are including
the disabled community on user surveys to aid in establishing our user customer needs.
And not just letting 508 -- and not just what 508 requires, but what does a person
using this product really require? Marketing is getting involved with the technical
community and the development of the information on the VPA T, which is good. And it
makes for a much better product so we can annotate the equipment correctly for the
government procurement officer. It also allows the marketing -- marketing allowed us to
address our customer concerns earlier in the process, before we begin to bend the
metal. We have usability labs within HP, and the usability labs efforts and
accessibility efforts are coordinated through the facilitation of our human factors
group and our testing personnel, like a hand in the glove they work together and it
becomes a good processment and we are also utilizing the expertise of disabled
individuals on our accessibility and user efforts. The home of the laser jets, we use
the people from the Idaho commission for the blind. Debbie worked with them and she
knows some of those people. The lead technical expert for the 508 requirements in the
Boise site is a gentleman who is deaf. And he does all of the technical expert tease.
So we have a good mix of people to review our products and see how they fair from an
accessibility standpoint. Again, it provides us excellent feedback on what we can do in
the future. Lessons learned. Personally, more patience from myself. Rome was not built
in a day but it would be nice to have every product accessible in a short amount of
time. But there are ramifications that prevent that from happening. But eventually that
will happen. It's extremely difficult in the hardware environment, due to the long lead
items that are required before you bend the metal and working with the different
vendors for creating those products. We learned that we need to address the required
changes sooner in the product development flow, so people can begin working them ahead
of time so there are no surprises. The biggest lesson we learned is train, training,
training. And I can keep going on with training. Training, training. We need to educate
the industry needs to be educated and the government needs to be educated on the VPat
process. We have to provide information in a standard format that can be understood by
everyone and also it provides the government the information they need to make an
educated decision on which products they need to buy. I mentioned before, we need to
treat accessibility as a regulatory item and I think that really helps from a
philosophical standpoint. One of the toughest things is trying to develop a business
case and risk assessments for some products, especially if you go beyond 508. We can
say I'm going to sell X amount of products to the government at this time, but I don't
know how many of these products I'll sell outside the government. So you really need to
understand the business case and the business risk that you'll be dealing with, with
the products. What kind of results have we had at HP? I think we have better products
and services and websites from a useability and accessibility and documentation
standpoint for all customers and employees. We are working hard at it and we are
aggressive at it and we believe in it. We have a commitment for it. We have achieved
complete accessibility packages for some of our products and some of those products do
go beyond that 508 boundary that I talked about. It's created a more comprehensive and
united approach between the various divisions. They are altogether. We have a central
point for accessibility issues now called HP ASS, HP accessibility solution, which I'm
a member of. We have a corporate policy and objectives, which are -- have been accepted
by the company. I mentioned a lot of things, some of the things that I mentioned are
the same as the -- that Richard mentioned, the same that Marney mentioned and that's
good? good. Because that means that we are all listening to the same thing. We are all
concerned about the same things. But from a HP standpoint, I think we are making good
strides. We will get there. It's a long consuming process, but we will get there. And I
welcome any input from anybody who would like to contact us, to give us some input.
Thank you.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Thank you, Lee? Lee. I think there will be a lot of interest in the
tool kit that you mentioned. Will that be available to the public and if so, can you
tell us how to monitor when that will be available and how we will be able to get it?

>> LEE BATEMAN: The first answer is no. So -- the tool kit is an internal process that
we are developing for our designers to use. I say that with tongue in cheek right now.
At some point in time it may be, but right now it will be for our own use internally.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Okay. You talked a bit about product life cycles and development. And
I've been interested in what happens in between. What about the products that were on
the shelf when 508 went into effect, and are you retrofitting? Are you finding the
assistance -- technical assistance that you need for moving those products along as
well? Marney, you night want to address that also.

>> LEE BATEMAN: We are not working on a retrofit program. We took hold of it and said
from this point forward we are going ahead with these products. And making them
accessible. Trying to retrofit from a hardware standpoint is almost impossible
possible. Software you can do, but you can't make the 90 degree curve on the product a
180 degree curve now. So we concentrated on the new products?! products.

>> JULIE CARROLL: How about, Sun Marney?

>> MARNEY BEARD: Very similar answer. Certainly for hardware but also for software, we
put out new versions of our software products relatively frequently. So, what we do is
just increasingly build accessibility in the -- and get rid of any existing problems
that we have moving forward. But we have not looked back and said we will take the
functionality of this product that came out 2 or 3 years ago and simply make that
accessible.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: A question, I think that Julie asked of Richard, and perhaps want to
ask it on the industry side, and that is there was in the standard setting process
numerous people raising concerns about cost. That 508 is simply going to add cost to
product, whether that's on the hardware or the the software side. From HP's
perspective, particularly with the processes that you laid out, any sense of whether
that is true or not?

>> I personally do not know of any exaggerated costs that have been associated with the
product to make it accessible to a 508 standard. And that's the main reason, if you get
it early and get it in there, sure it mit cost you a bit, but it's not going to be
exorbitant and that cost probably wouldn't be passed onto the customer. Because you can
do it in your development cycle. But no, I've not seen any cost increases associated
with the product just because of accessibility.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: A related question would be that as you mentioned, making the
business case to move from marketing to the Federal Government to marketing to other
types of the buying public, how does that translate in terms of this point in time, the
kinds of marketing materials that you might be utilizing, and is it too early to see
examples where there has been significant change in marketing strategy or marketing
materials, based on the accessibility features that are certainly part of your
government sales?

>> LEE BATEMAN: Marketing is just getting engaged in that, so it's too early to tell.
But I think by interviewing the people in the community who require the special
services or items I think will give us a good handle on what the marketshare or what
the market approach would be for that. Certainly 508 and the government gives you a
feel for, but you know that 508 is just one segment of the market -- or the government
is only one segment of the market and we need to go beyond that. I think we will get
there, in fact I know we will get there, but right now it's too early to tell you. I
don't have any quantitative that I can share with you, because I really don't know.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Thank you.

>> JULIE CARROLL: The final panelist is Debbie Cook. The director of the Washington
State assistive technology Alliance. She is also the technical assistance coordinator
for the national center on accessible information technology and education. And Debbie
worked on a national level in the area of technology policy and service delivery for
many, many years, and lo and behold in her background is some experience working
directly with people with disabilities. I think we have uncovered something here,
Michael. Db be, welcome.

>> DEBBIE COOK: Thank you. It's good to be here and I'll provide thoughts on the
consumer perspective, the end-users of the products and services that are being made
accessible as a result of the Section 508 compliance. And where we are at the end of
our first year. And it strikes me that in the first year of any new kind of initiative,
there are lots of struggles and lots of things that have to happen, but I'm really
delighted with a number of things that I've seen so far. Certainly that are well
described by our other panelists today in terms of their enthusiasm to create a better
future for all of us that will coincidentally significantly impact people with
disabilities but also impact every one of us in our society. And that brings us to the
positive thought of who benefits of what happened in Section 508? Of course obviously
we know that federal emt ployees and members of the public who need access to federal
services are a targeted beneficiary, but really we all benefit. Because as other
entities consider complying with Section 508 or as products and services are developed
that are used in other sectors, other than employment, but can benefit from the many
aspects of 508 that have been already completed by different industry, I know both
Marney and Lee mentioned some of the kinds of products that people might be using where
their technologies might be embedded in them and where there is not actually
necessarily an employment related factor. I sure know as a person with a disability, I
visited a model home environment a few weeks ago and was worried about my future and my
independence if those technologies don't come into playment and so that goes much
beyond the issue of employment. But we are also looking at benefiting the many people
with disabilities who, for a ra variety of reasons, including access to information
technology have not been successful or had an opportunity in the employment market jet
and people with disabilities continue to be -- yet, and people with disabilities
continue to be the highest unemployed minority in our country, with varying rates and
percentages thought about that, but most people assume it's at least at 50 percent so.
There is no point in sputing whether it's someplace higher than that. As technology
changes we know there is going to be a very positive impact in that area. One of the
significant benefits in 508 has been the increase in visibility. In my work, I have
opportunities often to talk to different product developers about the accessibility of
their products. Many of their customers are not necessarily required to comply with
Section 508, but they are for various reasons interested in product accessibility.
Often now, as I'm approaching different product developers, it's great for me to start
to talk with them about this feature or that feature of the current product version
that may not be too accessible and for them to stop me saying yes, we are working on
trying to make our product more compliant with Section 508 and these are the things
that we will release on such and such a date and these are future things that we have
in mind and these are current Hurdles that we are facing. And I go wow, because that
wasn't the case when I started in this particular area of work in about 1986. So I
think that's been a huge change. And of course, there has been tremendous progress just
in the products themselves. As our other panelists mentioned, they are rolling out
products that have significant consideration for accessibility. They have tried very
hard to infuse accessibility concepts throughout their corporations and throughout
their work groups and this is going to make for continued progress in the area of new
roll out. And so it's sometimes confusing for consumers, because we do wish things
could get retrofitted. Even though we often understand the logical and real reasons why
they can't, it's hard waiting for something new to happen. But it's tremendously
encouraging to me and other consumers to know that as something new is happening, that
new is betterment so it's new and improved from the standpoint of consumers. There are
some things in the process of implementing Section 508 that have been significant
challenges to consumers in the first year, and we anticipate that some of the things
will continue to be challenges in the future. Most of the things that I'll mention were
also mentioned by other panelists, which is a good sign. If we agree on what some of
the problems are, we will probably have a better success rate at getting a better
future. Someone mentioned the issue of interpretation that it's very easy to go into a
room and have debates about what Section 508 compliance means on any given day and at
any given level. And this is sometimes a difficulty for both industry, procurement
people and consumers because we don't know what we are getting. We don't know what you
are providing, we don't know what you are buying. It gets confusing. So we look forward
to increased work around interpretation as we all working together. But that is
certainly a problem. One of the particular areas of concern is the issue of
verification, that is part of that issue of interpretation. On the very positive side
of that, I am just extremely excited that industry has taken the initiative to develop
the VPATs, and I think the voluntary product accessibility templates go a long way to
help us all understand industry's intent for accessibility. The down side of that is
that if we turn this responsibility over to industry, we don't always know whether we
are actually getting what we think we are getting. And I think industry's intent is
always good, if they are involved in this process, but sometimes the realities are not
quite what we would like. For example, I pulled a few VPA Ts recently to take a look at
them and several companies offered their documentation for the products being
recognized. They offered the documentation in alternative formats. But when I looked at
some of that documentation, I found that they had created text versions of the words in
the documents, but not text versions of the icons in the documents. So, for example, if
you had a piece of hardware and you had a picture of the box and you were being told
how to get the product started, instead of the documentation saying press the on switch
located in the lower left hand corner, they said it said press the located and that was
it. No other words. Because they were pictures of the knob for turning it on or the
lever, and then pictures of where it was located on the device. Well, when they
converted the PDF document to text, the pictures didn't follow? follow. And yet they
put in the VPAT that we did that. And I don't believe that was an intent to not have
done that. I think it was an issue about that. So that raises for me another issue that
consumers face, which is that people with disabilities need to be actively involved in
the process of interpreting and verifying the product accessibility. And I was pleased
today that all of our panelists talked about the idea of including people with
disabilities at various stages of the process. And I can tell you that if the VPATs
that I looked at had had users of people with disabilities, they would have caught
quickly that there was a small problem, even though intent was good here and that would
be the case in other situation, too. And sometimes the struggle for many industries to
employ the people with disabilities they need, because often the products that those
industries were making for years weren't accessible to the people with disabilities
that they would like to employ. So there becomes a gap between people with familiarity
with your product and process, and people who have actually do that work. But as
industry thinks creatively about how to involve people with disabilities in both the
usability and testing processes, very early on, and how to employ people with
disabilities in the product design, testing and verification all throughout the
process, whether we employ them as employees or as users, it's very very, very
important. I mentioned already the issues about legacy software and other technologies
that cannot be reasonably retrofitted, and that of course is a very major issue for
consumers, because many consumers are not very fluent in the idea of whether Section
508 started today, last week, last year, two years ago. They just know that the thing
they need to be able to use still is not available to them and how come is that? And so
that is a real education issue. Another issue that consumers are facing that is very
challenging is the interface between the information technology as it is being made
more accessible and the AT that they need to use. And again I was pleased by the
comments that our panelists made today regarding the work that they do in consultation
and development with assistive technology developers, but it is a tough field for the
smaller companies that are making the assistive technologies, which have been need to
be interfaced with the standard technologies that people with disabilities need to use.
And often there is a gap between the fact that someone has put an important
accessibility feature into their technology, but no one has been able to implement it
at the AT level, so that actual users can use it. The final issue that I would raise
for consideration with respect to end-users, Julie asked Richard if there had been
complaints filed yet. And I smiled because I thought this is a challenge for users. The
process of filing and dealing with a Section 508 issue in a very fast moving, targeted
environment, is very significantly difficultment and so we are always concerned about
that process and how people are able to do that, and whether it's worth it. Many
consumers tell me that by the time the process is completed, that technology will be
gone. Well, I said that with my -- I said that was my last comment but I have one more.
And that is that many users are also frustrated by the fact that many claims have been
made as a result of very good advances in various technologies but again it's an
interpretation issue as to whether everything is in place entirely with the assistive
technologies, the users, and everything else. Recently a very good article was
developed by the American foundation for the blind, the American council for the blind,
and national industries for the blind, on the discussion of portable document format
PDF. And Adobe has done a tremendous job of working toward making that particular
document format much more accessible and many AT vendors worked hard to implement a
process of making it possible for their technologies to support that format. But it's
often a pretty big challenge for end-users who may not be able to get all of the pieces
together, including all of the legacy PDF files that are not converted? converted. So
people find this to be all a very mixed issue. The future, two things that I think need
to happen to make our future better, certainly would be education and we have talked a
great deal about that among the panelists, about education for interpretation,
education for getting people on the band wagon and education for consumers about what
the realities are for industry. Education and collaboration in many areas. And the last
is increased and continued commitment by all of us to make this process work
effectively together, to continue to make a really positive future for all of us as
consumers of the outcomes of federal -- Section 508. Thank you.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Thank you, Debbie. You stressed consumer education as one element
needing more attention. And I wonder if you have any advice for those of us who are
plan to go do more of that, on how to reach consumers.

>> DEBBIE COOK: It's a pretty big challenge but I think certainly is a very important
one and many consumers are networked through larger disability organizations or through
various media outlets. I think that also advocating those who advocate with and for
consumers, hose to who do vocational rebl haigs, special education, other individuals,
it's part of that issue. But I think one of the very important parts of this is for
consumers to really understand the progress that was made. The barriers that we face in
actually making progress and how they can articulate their concerns in ways that can be
understood by people who are doing procurement and people who are doing development.

>> JULIE CARROLL: One more question for you, Debbie, because you did mention other
types of consumer and electronic products. Are you seeing any spillover from Section
508 into other types of technologies, in terms of finding more accessible features?

>> DEBBIE COOK: I think with respect to consumer technology in general, I'm afraid not.
Not significantly. And I think that a lot of what is posed to me by consumers is how do
we get the Federal Government to want to buy one of these? And "these" is something,
whether it's a mic crow wave or whatever, and the Federal Government may be buying
those and whether they are really information technology sometimes comes into play.
Although certainly as we -- as our microwaves go on the Internet, they will become
information technology. And so I think that we are not quite as far along with the
general consumer technology message that has not been as much marketing to the
developers that has been consistent. And developers have not made the connection yet in
terms of a market of people who will benefit from that accessibility. And we use the
curb cut analogy for Section 508 and that curb cut analogy needs to also spillover into
other kinds of consumer technology.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Thank you. I want to thank all of our panel. It has been a great
discussion. And our audience would like to get in on it. So we do need to turn now to
the second portion of the program. I need to make one correction. In a phone number for
how you can submit questions to us if you are submitting questioning by phone. The
number is 703-961-9250. Extension 223. And fax again, 703-961-9250. And of course again
the e-mail link and the chat link. While those questions are coming in, I'm going to
turn it over to Michael Morris, who is going to talk a bit about some of the activities
that ITTATC has been involved in, in the past year.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Thank you, Julie. As we pull in some of the questions from across
the country, I would take just a minute or two to orient our many observers out across
the country on what is it tack? ITTATC stands for the Information Technology Technical
Assistance and Training Center. It was a project funded by the national institute on
disability and rehabilitation research, or sometimes known as NID DR within the
Department of Education, back two years ago. We are in our second year of funding. It's
a five year project. It's a project that is fed quartered at Georgia Institute of
Technology. The center for Assistive Technology and environmental access. And CAT EA
teamed up with a host of other collaborators and partners, some of whom are probably
very familiar with you. First, the the southeast disability business technical
assistance center. And the other nine regional disability and business technical
assistance centers across the country, also funded by NIDRR. Also, another partner is
the trace center. Trace research and development center, headed up by Gregg and Kate
van Derheiden. Another one is inclusive technologies, head quartered in New Jersey. A
lead person is Jim Tobias. Julie and I represent the law, health policy and disability
center, at the University of Iowa, College of law. Also, the Georgia Tech research
institute. And some of our work in terms of keeping up to date and in the future
providing training and technical assistance to stakeholders at a state level involves
the state AT projects across the country. The RESNA technical assistance project and we
have worked closely with Debra buck and the New York office for technology. All of
these collaborators have come together to really focus on a very much the goals that
were in discussion here today, and that is to improve electronic and information
technology accessibility at both a federal and state level, with particular emphasis on
implementation of Section 508. And also section 255 of the Telecommunications Act. In
year 1, ITTATC did a number of things, just let me highlight a few for you. It pulled
together a kind of rapid response training. There were presentations made in 89 venues,
and over 5,000 individuals were reached. The website which was created, www.ITTATC.org,
has received over 164,000 hits. And over 9,000 interactive visits in just a 7 month
period. A Web course on website accessibility at an intermedia level is available from
the ITTATC website. And we have hosted, just like today, a series of webcasts. The
first about a year ago, making final preparation for Section 508. A second on making
telecommunications products and services accessible to people with disabilities. And
then a third, state information, technology accessibility initiatives. There have been
over 3,000 individuals who have registered for those webcasts in the first year. And we
will continue to do webcasts in the second year. You will find as well that as we move
into year 2 we will continue to develop different types of training, and we will be
working again in collaboration with the trace center, which later this summer will be
doing a one-day training course for designers at computer human interaction 2002
conference. We also will be working with the industrial design Society of America,
their conference in California in July where there will be a one-day ITTATC training
and presentations. There is an electronic newsletter that Julie is the lead developer
of, and is produced monthly. And that is something as well which you can sign up for.
We are also working with the disability business and technical assistance centers on
development of our own tool kid. And working to help them work with the many
stakeholders in terms of gaining a greater understanding and awareness of electronic
and information technology abscess built. Jim Tobias is leading an effort and trainings
before many industry groups called an accessibility training preview. And that will
continue to be rolled out during this second year. Something that I am working with
with the AT AP and the RESNA project and the New York project for technology, we will
be doing extensive phone interviewing is what of what is going on at a state level. We
have talked with state procurement officials and also the state AT projects. At Georgia
Tech, they will be developing a series of industry case studies. Best practices models
for developing accessible products, and we will be doing further work in talking with
consumers across the country. This is just some of the activities of the ITTATC project
and if you are interested in talking or communicating directly with the project
director, the project director is Mimi Kessler. The center for assistant technology at
Georgia. 4 9d 010th street, Northwest, Atlanta, Georgia, 39318. Direct phone number is
404-894-0953. Or you can use Mimi on line at Mimi?! Mimi.kessler@ITTATC.org. ITTATC
also has a toll free telephone number, and that number is 1-866-91 -- sorry. Toll free,
866-948-8282. So, again, if ITTATC is not a project that you have been talking to, I
urge you to take a look at website and also if you're a member of industry, you're a
trainer, you're working at a state level, you're a consumer or user of IT products, and
you're an individual with a disability, please take a look at the ITTATC website and we
hope we can begin interaction with you and look to continue to work over the next 3
years on ways that we can promote the development of accessible sibl electronic and
information technology products and services. So, with that short commercial, I guess
almost an info Mercial, we will turn to some of the questions that have come in, and we
will have practically a half hour, a a little bit more, for questions. And even as we
begin to ask questions of the panel, as Julie mentioned, there is ample opportunity to
still either call, fax in, or e-mail in your questions. Again, the call in number is:
703-961-9250. Extension 223. Julie, do you want to ask the first question that you
have?

>> JULIE CARROLL: This question is for the industry representatives. And it's probably
from a state -- someone in a state government. Are you getting questions from states
about meeting various accessibility standards within states? Are those consistent with
one another? And are they consistent with what the Federal Government is doing?

>> I can start. I don't know of any right now, but I don't work in the marketing world
and that's where they would come into. I would like to say that HP did commission a
company to go out and survey states to find out things that are going on with the
states. We did that on an international level and we have that information that we can
use. But I'm not aware of any contract proposals or RFPs from states that questioned
anything for our products. Marney?

>> MARNEY BEARD: Also, I'm more focused internally than I am on sales and direct
customer contact. And I'm also not aware of any specific sqs requests or -- requests
for information from states on accessibility requirements. Again, the information that
I'm aaware of that we have is pretty consistent with Section 508.

>> LEE BATEMAN: I'd like to say if the person is interested, we can take their name and
contact them later, if they need that information.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Okay. The next question that has come in is from California. It's a
question for you, Richard. And again, although it's not specific for treasury, maybe
the best way you can answer it is in purchasing decisions that are being made at a
Federal Government level, how do you balance Section 508 requirements against other
requirements? For example, how important is a product's price or its support offering
or its reliability as other factors in deference, perhaps, regarding the requirements
for accessibility?

>> RICHARD MILLER: That is quite an issue with the Federal Government, but we have a
defined approach on that. We did receive guidance from the interdepartmental Section
508 working group specifically on that issue. Because it is not covered in the federal
acquisition regulation. The guidance is such that, first off in buying a product, we
have to insure that it satisfies the basic requirements of the Federal Government to do
the job or perform the service that the product is supposed to. Secondarily, we then
look at the Section 508 conformance level of the product, and whichever product
conforms the best to meet the accessibility needs of the end-user, that product would
be selected. Now, should there be a run off, where the accessibility of the products is
the same, then it becomes a best value judgment in terms of which product is going to
meet the overall needs of the government the best.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Okay. And here is a -- I think swh somewhat related question that
came in. Is it more valuable to have a single technology solution for accessibility, or
is it important to consider multiple alternatives? And they actually, this is a
question they said for anyone on the panel.

>> RICHARD MILLER: I would have to defer to -- beard I'd like to talk about that and
that's a good question and it gets asked a lot. It seems to me like, to the extent it's
fez toibl do so, the inclusion of multiple solutions creates for better competition,
creates more user flexibility. I think sometimes looking at it, if I looked at it from
the procurement standpoint like in Richard's shop, obviously sometimes they will need
for support reasons to the extent possible to go with single solutions. But, in
reality, I think it's very difficult just as with all other technologies, one size
never fits all. Although every industry would like to tell you that theirs does. But in
reality there is competition for a reason. And so I think that that is true in both the
accessibility -- process of accessibility solutions just as it is in the process of
design.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Any other panel members' comments?

>> I'd definitely side with Debbie and that's partly because much of what Sun is doing
right now is in fact developing alternatives to some established approaches to
accessibility. And we are contributing to the development of some new assistive
technologies. So certainly we are more interested in developing alternatives and
opening up more options.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: This is a question that has come in from Georgia. And it looks to me
like it would be directed to the two industry representatives on the panel. The
question is: Does your company hire people with disabilities? And if so, has that
presence in your workforce had any significant impact on the design of products for
Section 508 specifications?

>> MARNEY BEARD: Your turn.

>> LEE BATEMAN: Definitely, yes. HP does hire quite a few people with disabilities.
There is a lot of knowledge out there with people with disabilities and we do hire
them. I can speak from where I work locally. There is a group called physically
challenged employee network. And we draw on that network quite heavily from an
accessibility standpoint both in talking about designs and doing audits to make sure
that our products are doing it. So yes, we -- HP does hire people with disabilities and
welcomes the opportunity.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Great.

>> MARNEY BEARD: Sun also hires people with disabilities. It's part of Sun's overall
diversity in employment effort. But, primarily we hire people who have the competencies
to do the job that needs to be done, obviously. I would not say that we engage in
affirmative action with respect to people with disabilities. And maybe we should. On my
own team, there are two people with significant disa biltsz. By the way, Julie I have
to connect something that you said earlier, I have not a member of the advisory
committee to the access board. Earl Johnson, who happens to be quadriplegic, was our
lead member and I was the backup. We have a blind software engineer working on our
team. And a number of blind employees and people with physical disabilities working in
Sun. We have just begun to -- I think that the contributions that these people make
with respect to the design of our product is just beginning to take hold. I don't think
we are as far along in using people with disabilities in testing, for example, as HP
is, as Lee has said.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: This is a question that came in from Washington, D.C.. Again it's a
more global question. Just as we sit here now about a year since the 508 specifications
were published in the Federal Register after being developed by the access board, it's
a general question to the entire panel is: Can you sort of look ahead? We don't have a
crystal ball, but look ahead at sales in the next three years, both from two
perspectives, the question is asked. First, in terms of predictions about where we will
be in terms of accessibility beyond the federal marketplace. And, the second part was
where do you think we would be in terms of within the federal market? And maybe we will
come right across. Richard, we will start with you at treasury.

>> RICHARD MILLER: Okay. Three years is a long time in terms of technology. What I
wouldtory see is a continuing thrust with 508 for conformance and compliance.
Conformance on the part of industry and compliance by the Federal Government. I would
like to believe also that the access board will revise its regulations during that time
and some slightly -- in some slitly more aggressive ways to accomplish further
accessibility and accessibility of data. I would like to see it and I think it probably
would occur, is that Section 508 lose sz its special Aura in terms of something unique
and new and becomes more mainstreamed. So that by that time, 3 years hence we will have
a logo from industry. Standards will be set. Everyone is comfortable with where 508 is,
because 508 has simply become a general accessibility. And as a result, it's no longer
an issue. It's just fully mainstreamed and integrated. I would also foresee that
through technology becoming more acclimated to the needs of people with disabilities,
it's going to have a springboard effect. Sort of a ripple effect across technology in
general. Like we were referring to earlier, microwave. Well, one of the next steps is
that embedded technology, such as microwaves or vehicles would go to the equivalent of
Section 508 compliance.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Great. Marney?

>> MARNEY BEARD: I think it was the second half first. I expect to see much more growth
of 508 like requirements, or as I said earlier, I hope 508 requirements period,
especially in large educational systems. Because I think that those are organizations
that have an established responsibility to people with disabilities already? already.
So I would expect to see that area grow as part of the 508 sensitive customers that
companies like ours is serving. I also agree with Richard that the technology that
supports accessibility will definitely be extended into smaller devices, definitely
going beyond the desktop. And I think this will be beneficial for everybody.

>> I would agree with Marney and Richard on all of their comments? comments. If I
looked into the crystal ball at HP, 3 years, which is a long time, like Richard
mentioned, I'd say accessibility and I'm not saying 508, I'm saying accessibility,
would be a business as usual. I think it just becomes a norm and it just throws through
it with every product.

>> DEBBIE COOK: I think 508 or any accessibility legislation becomes successful when it
does become a way of life rather than a regulatory process. And I also think that it
needs to extend. I certainly agree with Marney's comments about extending down into
education. In one of my lives, I work with the accessibility of K-12 software which
isn't, and I just really have a very great concern for our future kids who are coming
up.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: The question came in, and this is a subject that we have heard a lot
about during this past 12 month period? period. And that has to do with whether or not
it would be a good idea for the Federal Government to somehow support the funding of a
testing laboratory, sort of an external third-party lab. Some people have suggested
that that would at least provide more consistency across federal agencies in terms of
the acquisition and procurement process. And yet we have also heard discussions from a
good number of industry representatives that they're not sure that that actually would
be the best thing. That they would prefer their own internal processes, have more
flexibility in terms of how to approach meeting accessibility standards. And here
again, perhaps I'll go the other way on the panel, from a consumer perspective, Debbie,
what are you thoughts?

>> DEBBIE COOK: Well, I stated in my presentation the fact that I both applauded and
was concerned about industry's efforts thus far to do its own internal assessment. And
I would reiterate that. Because I think that industry does, in fact, have a
responsibility to, as it designs for accessibility to test for accessibility. It ought
to tell us what it has done in those areas. But I think we need to work together to
help industry do that more accurately and less commercially in some cases. The process
of how industry is currently preparing the VPATs is very inconsistent among itself.
While I value the diversity of the ability to be able to do any kind of equivalent
facilitation and meet or exceed the standards I have some concerns that this is
creating a lot of confusion. On the other hand, I think that a third-party testing lab
is of value. it will not be able, however, to, in many case, adequately test for what
industry views as equivalent facilitation. Because it's going to have to test to
standards. And the effectiveness of an equivalent facilitation becomes a value judgment
on the part of the lab, the consumer and industry. My personal view is that I favor a
collaborative approach of testing. But certainly more clarification about what we're
testing for and how we determine if we have met it.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Lee?

>> LEE BATEMAN: She is supposed to be first.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Okay.

>> LEE BATEMAN: I'd like to address something that Debbie said. Another industry
association just put out their best practices for filling out the VPAT so industry
member ks use the same language and give definitions. So that will help that process
quite a bit, Debbie. Testing -- test houses -- first of all, I think it would slow down
the product to market so bad that -- because, I think it would get jammed up. And I
come from a testing background and I certainly support testing to standards. But I
don't think there is anything wrong with developing standards as a collective group and
everybody agrees on those standards. And then let the companies go out and run the
tests against those standards. I don't think you need a central point to have to send
your products in to. So similar to UL, for example. You can do something like that. But
I think having a central place would just Stime the flow of products.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Marney is this.

>> MARNEY BEARD: This is a tough one, because I know that it's difficult for federal
agencies to make their determination, making sure that the members and employees and
member of the public would be served. If it were to be a single lab or if it were to be
disburrsed, I think the comment about equivalent facilitation is the point. You have to
allow the products to meet the standards in various ways. You can't insist that only
this particular desktop environment, this particular screen reader, this particular
input device work with a product because that's not what the regulations require. So
you -- for this to be successful, it would be a very expensive undertaking, because it
would need to accommodate all of the diversity of the products that are being produced.
And this is across the entire hardware, software, multimedia, closed products, all 8
sections of the 508 standard. So, I think it's conceivably a valuable thing. I think
that if it's done in anything less than a full and complete way, it would be a very
expensive waste.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Richard?

>> RICHARD MILLER: I would have to almost agree with Lee word for word. We did not
collaborate ahead of time. And Marney as well. I cannot foresee a third-party testing
vehicle or approach being successful. We're talking too broad a range of products. I
can just foresee that products to market like Lee was saying would be held up
enormously. But, the idea of standards across industry, mutually developed by
consensus, with government participation and collaboration, and then voluntarily
followed with the opportunity, after purchase of course, the government is always going
to, in one way or another, verify that the product represents what it's supposed to do.
And if not, we have excellent warranty clauses. But, I think that kind of approach
would be fairer to the marketplace, allow things to move expeditiously and truly not
burden anyone.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Okay. I think it's a subject that won't go away by any mean, but I
think the answers are very, I'm sure, very helpful to --.

>> May I make another comment on it? And Marney suggest $it. If you take the testing
facilities or test house, whatever you want to call it, just having them keeping up
with the technology that is evolving, would just be horrendous costs to make sure that
they have the right things in place when the products come in. And if they don't, then
that delays time to market again.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: This is a question that came in, again across the panel, we will
start in the middle, this time, whatever that means. There certainly has been a very
difficult year for government and for all of us, as American citizens. September 11 has
changed priorities at individual government and corporate levels across the country.
The question that came in has to do with, in the world of IT, and particularly at
government levels, both at a federal and state level, the number one priority today is
on security. And the question is: For many people, their hopes and aspirations in terms
of how much energy and support and focus related to accessibility has somewhat had to
be diminished in this first year of 508 standards. Any thoughts in terms of maybe start
with you, Richard, within government agencies, security is at the top of most people's
list? list. Protection, security of our IT infrastructure. Any thoughts in terms of how
you keep the momentum going in terms of interest and focus on accessibility challenges?

>> RICHARD MILLER: Very tough question. I can only speak from the perspective of what I
see at treasury, which is that of course September 11th changed everything for every
federal agency. The emphasis definitely is on security. However, Section 508 has not
been really reduced in significance. It's simply like everything else in our lives been
slightly offset by the whole issue of security. So it hasn't lost its priority in the
pecking order of issues that the Federal Government needs to deal with. I think
indirectly, because so much of the new security that we're going to see is IT oriented,
that we're going to see sort of a secondary wave of accessibility issues come up
through the application of IT to security, which might even further promote the
accessibility as we know it under 508. Because that IT that is being used in security
is going to have a citizen interface a great deal. And so there could be 508 elements
that come into our environment through that means as well. More mr anyone else wanted
to --.

>> Sure I'd like to comment on that. We certainly are seeing increased attention on
security. And it's hard to say whether there is any decreased attention to Section 508
because September followed June by not very much time. With respect to our internal
processes, there is certainly no sense whatsoever of we can slow down on 508 because
government agencies are focusing only on security. Once you get processes started to
develop more accessible products, you just need to keep those going. In fact, it's
easier simply to keep going, even if the demand had noticeably decreased. It's easier
to get in the way that you established, rather than change priorities every few months
or so. So I don't think that our internal activities are going to slow up with respect
to accessibility in any way.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Okay.

>> I have not seen any slow down in the emphasis on 508, based on the September 11th
occurrence. I would like to state, though, and Richard touched on it, the more bells
and whistles you hang on the product, the more 1194 XX come into play. So you have to
keep accessibility out in front. Remember, if I'm going to do this, then how do I make
it accessible for everybody? So industry needs to be aware of that also.

>> MICHAEL MORRIS: Good. A question came in for Debbie. And it mentioned that, in your
comments, that filing a complaint for Section 508 or 255 they mentioned both here, is
difficult. Can you explain what you mean by "did I have cult?" and how do you --
difficult, and how do you go about it? Do you write a letter or fill something out on
line? What do you do?

>> DEBBIE COOK: Well, with 255, the complaints are handled through the FCC. And there
is a process that the FCC has for filing complaints. And the 508 complaints of course
start with the federal agency. And then there is a process that works out through this.
I think the biggest concern that consumers have in filing complaints is certainly
filing any kind of a complaint is challenging. Whether you're talking about this one or
any other one. So I'm not sure that these are harder to do, but it's a difficult and
challenging process for any people to have to go through and do the level of
documentation it takes. I think one of the particular concerns as I mentioned it in my
presentation with respect to 508 is that the technology is changing at such a rapid
rate that if I think that someone has procured technology that doesn't meet the 508
requirements and I do take that initiative, that technology will probably belong gone
by the time anybody is able to do anything about it. And will there, in fact, be any
kind of positive outcome for me over all of that time? And so I think consumers are
feeling like that is a process that doesn't really exist for them. It's a process that
exists on paper to comply with the federal law, and that it may be, in fact, based on
the way that we do handle complaint processes inside of Federal Government, it may be
the only way that it can work. It's not necessarily that consumers have a better
solution because it would create mayham if consumers wo could go out and sigh I think
it's not accessible. But I think the process does feel awkward for consumers. This is
also different, too, because this isn't about reasonable accommodations. This is about
technology procurement. So there is a different issue for consumers in terms of whether
I have -- whether somebody has made a way for me to do my job, despite the technology
around me or whether the technology around me is as accessible as it can be?! be.

>> I think it may be an yair, that certainly in terms of the ITTATC website, we can
offer more information to try to explain the process. Richard, I suppose each federal
agency has a different complaint process, because again it's individualized.

>> RICHARD MILLER: I really can't speak to that. I do believe it varies across
agencies. And I would point out, Debbie, one thing that we have noticed within
treasury. The formal complaint process would be three human resources. And that is a
formal route. But what we're seeing is both industry, associations, and individual
citizens are coming to us by e-mail or through notice of the webmasters address on a
website, and very quickly there is a response to that individual, either to explain why
something is not compliant and can't be, or to remedy the situation, which I think is
the majority of the cases. So that by the informality of the process, there is a
quicker response that is much faster than the technology cycle. Actually. The other
thing I'd mention is with the Federal Government buying compliance Section 508
products, if a consumer notices that something isn't compliance, -- compliant, and we
bought that under Section 508 conformance guidelines, then the government can take
remedy action, remedial action, against the contractor. So even if those cases we do
want to hear about the concerns that arise.

>> You make a good point and certainly for people with disabilities and others out
there is probably the most effective and efficient process is, as you said, just on
line communication back, pointing out things that may be a problem and as Debbie as you
said, working together in terms of trying to quickly find adequate and appropriate
solutions. So good advice. I think we are just about out of time Julie. I'll turn it
back to you, and -- for some closing remarks.

>> JULIE CARROLL: All right. I can't let Marney and our other -- well, the other
industry panelists get away without talking about the back office exception. I know
particularly servers and networks and maybe HP, too, Lee, I'm not sure. But we do get a
lot of questions about the back office exception and where do you draw the line? When
does it become relevant to your technology and I wonder if you could talk about where
Sun has drawn that line, Marney.

>> MARNEY BEARD: Sure. The back office exemption first we believe applies only to
hardware and only to hardware that is located in these closed locations. I have
forgotten the exact language in the standard -- actually, it's in the preamble. The
significant thing for us is that Sun does in the believe that the back office exemption
applies to software and to, in particular, to the software by which these servers in
the back office are administered. For many, many years it's been possible to administer
Sun servers remotely. And since the human being that does the administration is not
located in that back office, we don't see any relevance of that exemption to our
software at all.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Lee, do you have comments on that?

>> LEE BATEMAN: I agree with what Marney said. The software can be placed anywhere, out
on someone's desktop. But the hardware is the issue. But at some point in time, and
this has been a situation I've talked to the access board about, at some point in time
they really need to address the functionality of the equipment, instead of the location
of the equipment.

>> Do any of the panelists want to make any closing remarks?

>> Thanks for the opportunity.

>> Enjoyed it. It's not nearly as bad as we thought it would be? be.

>> JULIE CARROLL: Thank you all very, very much for coming. Some of you across country.
And I also want to thank our audience for their participation and ask that you please
take a moment to fill out the evaluation form that is there on the screen. As Michael
mentioned, we will be doing more webcasts in the future and we would like you to give
us your feedback. Also, you can stay tuned for future webcasts and future technical
assistance opportunities at the ITTATC website. And again, that website is:
Www.ITTATC.org. And this concludes our Section 508 anniversary webcast.