By Tom Stanton

For all of the places Curtis Chong can go online, there are just as many he cannot. So when the U.S. Access Board enacted guidelines in December mandating that virtually all government Web sites be fully accessible to people with disabilities, Chong, who is blind, was excited. But he says that major inroads will come only when private sector sites follow the government's lead. "Private industry [sites] should definitely think about implementing the provisions of Section 508," says Chong, referring to the section of the Rehabilitation Act that outlines the federal guidelines. "If they move on this right now, then perhaps some of us won't feel quite so inclined to legislate the issue."

The concerns of Chong, the director of technology for the National Federation of the Blind, are reflected in a recent report from Forrester Research in which just one in four sites surveyed met the minimum criteria established by the Web Accessibility Initiative for Internet users with disabilities such as providing captioning and transcripts of audio clips for the deaf.

Advocates say a site's information should be available in more than one way. Judy Brewer, director of the WAI at the World Wide Web Consortium, says conveying information by sight, sound and touch "is an important part of accessibility,'' but not its only component. "There are issues beyond sensory disabilities, such as how well a site can be understood or navigated.'' Implementing small design features can make a big difference, says Steve Shelton, a senior programmer in Oklahoma City who, like many blind users, relies on screen reader software that converts text to audio. "Two minor things that can be done to improve Web site accessibility are adding 'alternate tags' to describe graphics links, and making sure textual links contain enough information so that it is clear what the link is," Shelton says.

Among the companies leading progressive accessibility efforts are Microsoft and America Online. The 508 guidelines apply to all new or updated pages on federal sites not involved with issues of national security. The sites must be in compliance by June 21.