Document Remediation Service And Its Importance

Every document that is uploaded to the website needs to have a specific structure. It should have tags, headings, labels, sections, paragraphs, etc so that it can be read by assistive devices. A structure to the document is also essential for it to be certified so that everyone can have equal access to the documents on the website including people with disabilities.

There are standards set for documents to define the content and structure of them so that text extraction by assistive devices becomes easy.

Accessibility is measured in terms of whether the user can use the product or service to achieve the desired results, which includes people with disabilities. To achieve that accessibility, the document owner has to know the standards and also the needs of the person with disabilities to address the barriers that are present to access the documents. Moreover, it is also a civil right and a federal law in countries like the US that the documents be available for disabled persons and these laws are in force both by the Justice Department and the Education Department. If a document is not accessible it needs to be remediated so that it can be used by assistive technology.

Document remediation is to edit the documents like .pdf, .doc, .ppt, etc so that it becomes compliant to accessibility standards and that people including those with disabilities can also use the digital content. It also empowers the disabled to use, navigate, read and browse the digital content without any help. ng a website or application, remediation Documents need to be compliant with section 508, ADA and WCAG standards.

Section 508: It was made as a Federal Law in 1998 and was intended to make the electronic and information technology called the EIT available to all persons with disabilities. In the latest updated guidelines, there are more provisions added to make it in-line with the latest technological innovations. It applies to all vendors, partners, and contractors who are operating in the US. There are many laws related to this section 508 laws to prevent discrimination against persons with disabilities. The three most relevant laws are :

WCAG: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG is a set of guidelines to provide better web access to all users including those with disabilities. They are internationally adopted and recognized standards for companies that have a website.

Need for document remediation services: Even though a document can be remediated by anyone, a remediation service offers the following advantages.

A complex process made simple: Creating a new document that complies to accessibility standards is itself a huge challenge. It becomes almost impossible to do so on documents that are lying with your company for a long time. In such a scenario, companies look for document remediation service who help in achieving as well as maintaining compliance standards. They identify and address all the issues with the document and fix in on-time and cost-effectively.

PDF Remediation made easy: PDF is a common format for a document in the digital world and hence ensuring that it is accessible to everyone is critical for a company. The PDF remediation services ensure that it is converted into a resource that is usable even for people with auditory and visual disabilities.

Help to meet compliance standards: Ideally, when a document is created it be generated with all the required structure in place. But that is not often the case and hence the document falls short of the compliance standards of WCAG or section 508 hence use of these services can make the documents compliant.

Have extensive knowledge: Creating a document that is well-structured and having all the guidelines implemented is not an easy job as that requires comprehensive knowledge of the various standards based on the country of origin of the company. But these remediation services know to tag the document content so that it is accessible and relevant information is conveyed. They can work and fix any document whether it is poorly tagged, not tagged or has no text and only image.

Fast and reliable: The remediation services use processes and technology that is proven after refining it through many customer engagements and accessibility requirements. Moreover, even high volume remediation is transformed quickly to achieve the needed compliance.

Document Accessibility services offered:There are two levels of services offered broadly

Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 are the standards that the document has to comply with. To do that the generic process flow to edit the documents is as follows.