What is a VPAT certificate?

A certificate generally refers to a document serving as evidence or written testimony of status, qualifications, privileges, or the truth of something. However, when you hear about a VPAT certificate, which is within the accessibility domain, do not imagine seeing a certificate in its general sense.

A VPAT certificate is the final product of a VPAT certification process that starts with choosing the correct version of the voluntary product accessibility template (VPAT) to use in documenting the accessibility conformance details of your information and communication technology (ICT) products or services.

This is followed by VPAT testing for the products or services, accurately and completely filling out the VPAT form, and making the filled-out VPAT form accessible. It is the duly completed VPAT form that is often referred to as the VPAT certificate. It does not involve a certifying authority, and there are no pass-fail qualifications associated with certificates.

Why a VPAT certificate?

In spite of the fact that accessibility for all improves our lives whether we have disabilities or not, it was not until the landmark amendment of Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act that accessibility issues moved from the periphery to the center stage.

It is now imperative that businesses and organizations make their digital products and services accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities. The revised Section 508 requires federal agencies to procure, maintain, create, and use ICT products and services that are accessible to people with disabilities, regardless of whether these people work for the federal government or not.

To help federal contracting officials and procurement teams comply with the revised Section 508, the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) partnered with the General Services Administration (GSA) to develop the VPAT form.

Though filling out a VPAT form for every digital product or service a business or organization has is voluntary, the VPAT report generated after completing the form, which is often referred to as the VPAT certificate, is a mandatory requirement for a digital product or service to participate in federal procurement processes.

Apart from the market comprising the federal organizations, without a VPAT certificate, your digital products or services will not be publicly procurable in Europe and other parts of the world.

Just as federal agencies are expected to comply with the Revised Section 508 accessibility standards when choosing digital products or services to procure, in Europe, public procurement authorities are required to adhere to the EN 301 549 accessibility standards for public procurement of ICT.

In fact, VPAT accessibility has now become a golden standard for accessible digital products and services, with four different editions of the VPAT form created to cater for accessibility of ICT in different scenarios or markets as follows:

• VPAT 2.4 WCAG Edition, which is used to test the compliance of websites and web-based digital resources for Level A, AA, and AAA of WCAG guidelines.
• VPAT 2.5 Section 508 Edition, which is used in undertaking VPAT assessments to establish the levels of conformance with the Revised Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act
• VPAT 2.4 EU (EN 301 549) Edition, which is used to generate VPAT certificates that demonstrate levels of compliance with the EU’s EN 301 549 accessibility standards.
• VPAT 2.4 International (INT) Edition, which is a combination of all three standards. This means that if a digital product or service complies with this edition of the VPAT form, then it has all the features included in the WCAG, Section 508, and EN 301 549 accessibility standards or guidelines.

Other benefits of having a VPAT certificate

If your business creates and sells ICT products or services, you’re losing out big time if you do not have a VPAT certificate for each of the products or services. With VPAT certification, you’ll be assured of the following:

• Enhanced opportunity to work with or offer services to federal organizations
• Ability to identify any critical accessibility issues in your products or services so that you can deal with them before releasing the product or service into the market.
• Increased market base for your digital products or services, including the huge market comprised of people with disabilities.
• Customer loyalty because the VPAT certificate demonstrates your commitment to accessibility as it enables customers make informed decisions about the accessibility of similar products or services.
• Avoidance of legal and financial risks associated with non-compliance with the established accessibility requirements
• Customized accessibility services as the business clearly understands the accessibility features that have issues and require fixing.

 Need help with VPAT certification?

VPAT certification requires specialist professional support so it can achieve the intended purposes. For example, the VPAT assessments that are part of the process require expert knowledge of the accessibility domain, including its dynamism.

You can review this VPAT certificate developed by ADACP so as to know what the certification requires or call (626) 486-220 to get VPAT certification assistance. Consultations are always free.

Not having an accessible website may lead to expensive lawsuits and loss of possible customers. If you don’t want to lose your customers, you have to ensure your website is accessible to everyone.  To accomplish that goal, you need to conduct an ADA website compliance test. There are many ADA compliant website checker tools available on the internet that you can use to quickly scan the codes of your business website. However, software testing runs at only about 30% accuracy and also are infamous for providing false positives. ADA accessibility is the law and you shouldn’t simply rely on a test that identifies only one-third of the accessibility problems. To confirm the latest guidelines of accessibility standards, manual audits are equally important and most reliable. In this post, we will share the significance of an ADA compliance audit to keep your business protected and how to find the best auditors that meet your needs.

What to expect from ADA Digital Accessibility Audits?

ADA compliance ensures that your business’ website is accessible to everyone. Non-compliance puts you at the risk of losing customers who are not able to access the content of your website. Accessibility audits identify the non-accessible elements of your website and make recommendations on how to improvement to reach the larger segment of your target audience. The audits are conducted by trained technicians. Compliance standards for a website depend on the quality of the audit report. Beware of cheap solutions and always hire quality to help maximize your return on investment. Prior to hiring a company to conduct a website audit, it is important to verify the scope they will be using and the detail in their reports. For example, do they include mobile testing? What browsers are included? What screen readers are part of their scope?

How to choose the right auditing service?

Legal recourse can tarnish the reputation of a well-established brand. If you want to protect your brand and stay ahead of the competition, it is important that you only partner with trusted service providers. Choosing one service from the endless list of accessibility specialists can be quite overwhelming. So follow the tips below to ensure total compliance:

• Thorough inspection: Beware if a service claims quick results. Thorough inspections can check website for ADA compliance in a detailed manner but it’s a time consuming process and if someone claims to do it quickly, chances are they are doing it the wrong way or taking shortcuts. Ensure that they are performing live audits and not just compiling the results of automated accessibility scans.
• Reporting: Another key aspect of audits is detailed reporting. You should be able to understand everything which is being communicated through the report. There should be a detailed analysis of the problem areas with adequate site screen shots and proactive recommendations to fix the non-accessible problems.
• Verification:Audits conducted by a third party specialist should be verified enough to offer peace of mind that your business is protected against hefty lawsuits.
• Confidentiality: some companies also audit websites for serial litigants, who are actively looking to sue businesses. Make sure to verify what their company policy is. The last thing you want to risk is some of your non-accessible findings getting to a serial litigant who can sue you for them.
• Mobile testing: Another key aspect to consider while selecting the best accessibility specialists is to confirm that their services include mobile testing. Responsiveness is the key to success for many businesses because most of their customers access the websites from their mobile phones, so including the mobile assessments is equally important.

Bottom line

Even the smartest victims can be fooled with superficial accessibility reports. So make sure you are partnered with a trusted website ADA compliance checker. If interested in a thorough ADA assessment, please visit the link given below.