A key principle of Web accessibility is designing Web sites and software that meet different user needs, preferences, and situations. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and NYS Policy P04-002 require Web sites to be accessible to persons with disabilities. “The process can be very labor-intensive bringing thousands of non-compliant HTML pages into compliance, but making it accessible might be a little easier for the Web unit, using XML,” said a technical Testbed participant. Properly structuring the data and style with XML can ease that burden since Web pages are generated automatically and uniformly. A change in one file can bring dozens or hundreds or even thousands of Web pages into compliance.

Furthermore, because XML separates content from style, it enables easier adaptation to new formats and requirements that occur in the future. One Testbed Webmaster expects XML to help them “better meet the accessibility standard with properly-structured code and more flexibility ... rather than it was coded to do this certain thing a couple of years ago and now you have to recode it to do this new thing this year.”