Accessibility in procurement: what to ask vendors and put in an RFP

Procurement is the buying process, from market research and a request for proposal (RFP) to the signed contract and every later release. Accessibility is cheapest to ask for at the start. Section508.gov, the U.S. government's Section 508 resource site, says accessibility requirements belong in the process from the beginning, so nothing surprises the buyer during or after implementation (Section508.gov, Buy Accessible ICT). Once a product is in use, every barrier is a request to the vendor, and the leverage of an unsigned contract is gone.

An Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) is a vendor's completed VPAT®, the free template from the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI): the vendor tests its product against a standard and records the results (ITI's VPAT page). This guide is the buyer's side: deciding, writing the RFP, asking, reading the answer and testing. The seller's side is in our VPAT and ACR guide. This page is general information, not legal advice; what you must buy, and against which standard, depends on the law and contract that apply to you.

What the law says about buying accessible technology

Rules that name procurement mostly cover public bodies. The table summarizes four. Private buyers should start with our laws finder.

Where a law names a standard, name it in the RFP so the vendor's report answers the question your duty asks. Where no law reaches the buyer, the contract is the only place to require accessibility. Our Section 508 guide and WCAG, ADA and Section 508 compared explain how the U.S. rules differ.

Decide what you need before you write the RFP

1. List who uses the product and for what. Staff, the public or both, and the three to five tasks that matter most, such as signing in, searching, paying or downloading a report. They set the scope of the vendor's report and become your test script. W3C says conformance applies to full pages and, where a page is part of a process, to every page in it (W3C, Understanding Conformance).
2. Pick the standard, version and level. Use the one your law names. Otherwise W3C's evaluation methodology calls Level AA of WCAG 2 the generally accepted and recommended target (WCAG-EM 2.0). Newer WCAG versions keep the older criteria, with an exception for 4.1.1 Parsing (see which WCAG version applies). ITI publishes four VPAT editions (508, EU, WCAG, and INT, which combines the three), so name the one you want.
3. Collect reports before you score. Section508.gov's market research step asks federal buyers to look for at least two possible solutions and record each one's vendor, version and fit. Gather reports from your whole shortlist first, so the gaps sit side by side.
4. Write a short buying policy once. W3C's planning and policies pages include guidance on developing organizational policies. It says a policy should cover procured third-party content, and its example favors providers on their accessibility conformance claims.

What to put in the RFP

Section508.gov publishes sample clauses for federal solicitations, to be tailored to each purchase, and calls its acceptance criteria helpful but not legally required (Define Accessibility Criteria in Contracts). The table follows their structure for any buyer. Your procurement office or lawyer should turn it into contract language.

Say what an incomplete answer costs. For federal awards, Section508.gov says the ACR must be complete and submitted as instructed to be considered, and advises keeping accessibility information out of any page limit. State your own rule in the RFP.

Buying custom work? Section508.gov's sample clauses require custom-developed technology to conform to the Revised 508 Standards before delivery and before final acceptance, and, where validation cannot happen before award, ask the offeror to describe its test process and provide the testing results.

Sample wording to adapt, invented for illustration and not legal text:

The Offeror shall submit an Accessibility Conformance Report on the
current ITI VPAT edition for [standard, version, level], covering
release [x.y] of [product], with its evaluation methods, and shall
explain every entry other than "Supports".

What to ask each vendor

Put these questions in the RFP or ask them in a call. The middle column says what a useful answer contains.

How to read the answers

Section508.gov's guide to vendor claims reads the terms this way. Supports means the product fully conforms to the relevant standards. Partially Supports and Does Not Support mean it does not conform, so find out which criteria are affected. Not Applicable needs a stated reason and is not non-conformance. Not Evaluated gives no assurance.

ITI adds that a conforming product may still be hard for some users with disabilities, that a product with gaps may work for a user who does not need the missing feature, and that there is no pass or fail scale. Read the gaps against your task list, not a count of rows.

Test the product before you sign

Section508.gov says an expert review can indicate accessibility but rigorous testing is required to validate vendor claims, and it recommends testing before award or deployment (Buy Accessible ICT). For web content it recommends the DHS Trusted Tester process. Most other buyers can run a shorter script on the vendor's real release in an afternoon:

1. Run each task from your scope list, start to finish, signed in, with realistic data.
2. Use only the keyboard, following our keyboard accessibility test.
3. Zoom in and narrow the window and confirm the tasks still work (see our zoom and reflow guide).
4. Try a screen reader on the main task. How screen readers read a page explains what you should hear.
5. Run the accessibility bookmarklet on each screen. It works behind a login. Read a clean result with what automated testing can and cannot find in mind.
6. Open the PDFs and exports the product produces with the PDF accessibility checker.

Log each failure against the matching row of the vendor's report, send the list to the vendor before you decide, and score the reply. If no product fully meets the standard, Section508.gov tells federal buyers to choose the one that best meets it consistent with business needs. Any buyer can do the same, then write each remaining gap and its fix date into the contract.

After you sign

Section508.gov says technology must remain accessible for the whole contract period and tells buyers to retest each new version against the original terms. Put a dated check on the calendar for each major release and renewal, ask for the updated report and keep your test logs. See how often to test accessibility and monitoring versus an audit.

Check it yourself

These free tools cover the buyer's side:

• Which laws apply to me? asks where your organization is based, where your customers are and what kind of organization you are, then lists the laws with sources. Use it to find the standard to name in the RFP.
• The accessibility bookmarklet checks a page in your own browser, including behind a login, so you can run it on a vendor's demo account. It cannot tell whether a page works with a keyboard or a screen reader.
• The WCAG checklist tracks all 55 Level A and AA criteria with notes and exports CSV: a test log to compare with a vendor's report.
• The PDF accessibility checker reads a PDF in your browser and checks its tags, language, title, alt text, headings and tables.
• Scan my site for free reads the public pages of a website, such as a vendor's public site. It cannot sign in.

None of these writes or checks a conformance report. A clean result shows only that its checks found nothing.