ACCESSIBILITY IN DRUPAL

Accessibility means that “people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web.”³ The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), at www.w3.org/WAI, provides guidelines widely regarded as the international standard for web accessibility. “In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. 794d) as amended by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (P.L. 105 - 220), August 7, 1998 to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology (EIT) accessible to people with disabilities.”⁴

With that said, what does accessibility have to do with your theme and how does Drupal stand up against accessibility standards? First, your theme produces the HTML markup and CSS that creates accessible pages. For instance, Section 508 states “A text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided (e.g., via “alt,” “longdesc,” or in element content).”⁵ This means that your theme files (from your theme or from a module) need to be able to render the attributes that provide the text equivalent. Another 508 requirement states that “markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers.” Simply put, this means your theme files need to create tables with header cells. These and many other requirements are associated with the HTML and CSS your theme produces.