Are Keyboard shortcuts mandatory for 508 compliance

Question

I researched a lot on this and seem to be getting conflicting answers on SO and all of the web. I understand that with Section 508 that compliance DOES NOT equal accessibility

Answer 1

The problem with some standards (as well as many laws) are that they're open to interpretation...

The only mention I can find in the 508 standards that mentions keyboard use is this (verbatim):

Subpart B -- Technical Standards

§ 1194.21 Software applications and operating systems.

(a) When software is designed to run on a system that has a keyboard, product functions shall be executable from a keyboard where the function itself or the result of performing a function can be discerned textually.

My spin on this is:

• A keyboard shortcut for navigation options may be impractical given the amount of operations/features a given section may contain. It is important that they're reachable -somehow- via keyboard.
• From a UX standpoint, key features should have shortcuts "just because" it's good UX practice. But to shortcut everything goes from one ditch into the other.
• 508 != accessibility, but if you work for a gov/edu, chances are it's in your PD to be compliant.

Another end of the spectrum is the WCAG which is pretty much coupled with 508 compliance, and in my book better defined: Keyboard stuff is under 'operable' in WCAG.

In a nutshell: It's good practice for UX to have custom keyboard shortcuts for important features. But has no bearing on 508 compliance by itself. (With exception that functionality should be reachable by keyboard -somehow-).