Quick VPAT Review

Estimated time to perform task: Under 10 minutes.

Evaluation time may vary depending on the scale and complexity of the product being evaluated.

What is a VPAT?

A VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) is an overview of the accessibility compliance of a product. It is often owned and assessed by the product’s vendor – though that’s not necessarily a good idea. It is required by the Section 508 Refresh and almost all Federal solicitations.

A VPAT is not an accessibility audit report of a product – although, it is necessary to conduct an accessibility audit of the product to write an accurate VPAT. Without an accessibility audit, a VPAT is just a guess about the product’s accessibility compliance.

Do not assume that a VPAT is accurate, especially in the case where a VPAT has been written by the product’s vendor. However, there are cases where an external agency has written the VPAT, and it is still inaccurate.

[How to Read a VPAT by Accessibility Oz]

What is an ACR?

An ACR (Accessibility Conformance Report) is the broader document, and contains the results of tests against WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, and sometimes more.

A vendor may send a full VPAT or just the test results (ACR) portion.

Reviewing a VPAT

Quickly reviewing the following will give you a good idea of how accurate, or not, the VPAT may be.

1. Product Description: Is the product description accurate? Is the version number up to date?
2. Date: When was the VPAT written and product assessed? A good question to ask yourself or the vendor if it’s slightly out of date is “Have there been NO updates to the product since this was assessed last?” Ideally a new VPAT should be made with each substantial version update.
   1. In general, look for VPATs that are no older than 12 months, maximum. Less than 6 months is ideal. (Unless the product truly has not been updated in that long!)
3. Evaluation methods: How did the vendor have the product assessed? Look for the following:
   1. Assistive technologies used during testing
   2. Multiple methods of testing (like manual testing, automated testing, etc.)
   3. Third party evaluators that can be vetted, including contact information and/or addresses
   4. References to specific methodologies
4. Some concerning answers and other things to look out for:
   1. Boilerplate, general answers
   2. Proprietary testing methods (unless they can be vetted).
   3. ONLY automated testing
   4. Overly similar to other products
5. Terminology used throughout the document(s):
   1. VPATs have specific terms, including:
      1. Supports
      2. Partially Supports
      3. Does Not Support
      4. Not Applicable (N/A)
   2. Using non-standard terms, like “pass,” “fail,” etc. are concerning
6. Responses
   1. Check vendor responses to each criterion to ensure they make sense
   2. Items of concern include:
      1. All criteria marked as “Supports”
      2. Criteria marked as “Supports” while noting areas of non-support
      3. Several “N/A” responses, especially for features you know the product includes
      4. Answers of “Supports with Exceptions,” which was removed from the VPAT in December 2018.

Trust, But Verify

Spend a couple minutes testing these few simple guidelines. They can also help confirm the reliability of the ACR and provide a sense of the general accessibility of the product. Then, compare your results to the results stated in the documentation.

• 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A), 2.4.7 - Focus Visible (Level AA)

Navigate the product using only the keyboard. You should be able to access and use everything you would use with a mouse. You should also be able to tell where you are, with a highly visible keyboard focus indicator. View a 1-minute video on testing keyboard support.

• 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide (Level A)

Any automatic movement, such as animations or videos, image sliders/carousels, etc. should stop within five seconds or have a pause feature that can be accessed with mouse, keyboard, and touch.

• 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks (Level A)

Any web-delivered product should include a skip link, usually "skip to content", as the first keyboard focusable item. When testing with keyboard, this should be the first item you tab to. View a short video on checking skip links.

• 3.3.1 Error Identification (Level A)

Submit any forms with incorrect or missing data. You should be able to tell which fields have errors. The errors should be described accurately, with suggestions for correcting the problem.

Contact The Vendor If Necessary

If you have identified some red flags then it is essential that you contact the vendor. Some example questions are:

• “Why is this dated 14 months ago? Has the product not been updated in 14 months?”
• “Why did you say this section is N/A when the product has this feature?”
• “What kind of testing did you do to ensure compliance?”
• “Why did you decide to fill out this VPAT internally?”
• “Why does the description omit essential features of the product?”
• “Why did you decide to test with only one screen reader?”

It is very important to assess how the vendor responds. If they have a good answer – one that sounds reasonable and is well thought out, then they probably do care about accessibility and may just have forgotten to update their VPAT.

Further Evaluation

Once you have reviewed the VPAT, have an accessibility review done to confirm that the product meets our standards.

References:

How to Read a VPAT

Indiana University: Quick review of a VPAT