VPAT 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Accessibility Reporting
If, like many of our clients, you’re an educational institution that relies on federal funding, or a healthcare insurance provider that participates in programs such as the ACA Marketplace, then you’re probably familiar with the accessibility requirements that go along with working with the federal government. There’s Section 508, which requires websites to provide comparable access to electronic information and data to people with disabilities, as well as Section 1557, the civil rights provision of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, which prohibits discrimination based on disability. There’s also a good chance you’ll need to detail your accessibility compliance by submitting an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR).
You may be wondering, where do I even start putting that together? The good news is there’s a template for that! Enter the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, or VPAT to its friends. The template comes in a variety of flavors, but for websites you’ll most likely want to use the one with the most recently updated version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): VPAT 2.5 WCAG.
A few quick notes on what a VPAT isn’t: It’s not a legal document or official certification. It’s also not a pass/fail test–it simply helps detail a site’s level of accessibility compliance. Finally, completing a VPAT shouldn’t be just a one-time task; you’ll want to ensure it is still accurate as your site changes over time.
So what is the VPAT, exactly? It outlines the guidelines required for each level of accessibility, from minimum (A), to common (AA), to extremely thorough (AAA), and includes useful links to the WCAG, with information on each guideline as well as how to meet it. After testing, each guideline is rated as “Supports,” “Partially Supports,” “Does Not Support,” or “Not Applicable.” Once everything has been filled out, signed, and dated, your VPAT becomes an ACR, much like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.
Of course, the above makes it sound much more simple than it actually is. In reality, even with the WCAG links, a lot of the guidelines can be difficult to interpret without a background in accessibility. For example, “Guideline 2.1 Keyboard Accessible: Make all functionality available from a keyboard,” seems like it would be pretty straightforward, but do you know which keys are commonly used for things like toggling a checkbox? Or what keyboard trapping is? To get a complete view of how accessible your site really is, you’ll want it evaluated by an expert. Automated testing tools can be a good start, but they’re not going to give you the full picture and may even provide inaccurate information.
To make things easier for you, when we at Clique Studios conduct VPATs, we provide a detailed checklist of what needs to be fixed and how to fix it. Even if you don’t need an ACR, having a completed VPAT is a great way to identify any issues your site might have and help ensure that it can be used by anyone. Which is pretty important, and may be worth the extra helping hand. Our line is always open, and we’re happy to chat through it with you. Off you go!