Accessibility of U.S. federal government home pages: Section 508 compliance and site accessibility statements

U.S. federal websites are required to be accessible for people with impairments. However, despite the existing regulations and guidelines, many federal websites continue to be inaccessible, and accessibility policy statements available on federal websites often do not provide any useful information. This paper provides three contributions to the research literature: (1) an accessibility evaluation of 100 federal home pages using both human and automated methods, (2) a content analysis of existing website accessibility policy statements, and (3) a discussion of the relationship between actual Section 508 compliance and the existing accessibility policy statements on a website. The paper concludes with recommendations for improving policy related to Section 508 compliance for websites.