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Web Accessibility VPAT
Businesses and organizations that plan to collaborate with a Federal agency or companies under government contract must produce a VPAT report. The VPAT follows a standard format that outlines the product’s conformance with accessibility standards of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. It provides detailed information on how the product addresses accessibility requirements, including specific functionalities and features. EqualWeb can issue a VPAT quickly and at affordable prices.
What is a VPAT?
VPAT stands for Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, which is a document that provides information about the accessibility features and compliance of a product or technology solution. It was developed by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) and is widely used to assess the accessibility of various products, including software, hardware, and electronic devices. In short, it is a template that details the remediating efforts and accessibility levels a website has met.
Vendors usually generate a VPAT in order to sell information and communication technology (ICT) to the Federal government. The best way to do so is by demonstrating how your website meets accessibility regulatory requirements via a VPAT. If you want to sell ICT products to the government, generating a VPAT is a must.
Testing your website against Section 508 standards
The VPAT report specifies in a simple statement the accessibility features of a website and how it meets the Revised 508 Standards. Since Section 508 stipulates WCAG as the benchmark standard for web accessibility, it is best to audit a website against WCAG 2.2 Level AA Success Criteria before filling in the VPAT.
You can learn more about VPAT at the Section 508 website, where you can also download the VPAT template.
There is some confusion over the difference between a VPAT and an ACR, so let’s be super clear. ACR, which stands for Accessibility Conformance Report, is simply the VPAT template filled with your details. Yes, that’s all there is to it. A VPAT is a blank template, which you can download here, and an ACR is a VPAT filled in with all the details and information about your product and its accessibility levels. It’s become an industry standard to simply refer to an ACR as VPAT, so if you’ve never heard about ACR don’t sweat about it.
Is there a VPAT score?
There is no VPAT score per se. VPAT is also not an audit report. VPAT is a specified summary of a website’s accessibility after it was audited and evaluated for overall accessibility compliance.
The generating process is simple: we audit your website with the most advanced and powerful monitoring technology (see Web Accessibility Monitor). Our team of experts then manually scans your website for any accessibility issues the automated scan may have missed. Next, we fill in the VPAT document for you, detailing your accessibility standards and assessing your compatibility. At the end of the process, we issue the VPAT to your email.
Our VPAT reports are thorough, simple, and highly detailed, accurately reflecting your accessibility status as well as the existing gaps between your website and legislative standards.
