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Strategies for attaining a good VPAT Section 508 compliance level for your products or services

What is Section 508 VPAT compliance?
 
section 508 checklist compliance is the state of conforming to the established accessibility standards or guidelines, or the process of doing so utilizing the Section 508 edition of the voluntary product accessibility template (VPAT).
 
The Section 508 compliance VPAT incorporates the accessibility requirements enacted to ensure conformity with Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act.
 
Section 508 requires any information and communication technology (ICT) that is procured, maintained, or used by U.S. federal organizations to be accessible to people with disabilities.
 

 
Strategies for attaining a good VPAT Section 508 compliance level
 
To attain a good level of Section 508 compliance, you need to embrace the following strategies:
 

  • Undertaking a VPAT assessment of the product or service

Attaining a good Section 508 compliance level requires a thorough assessment of the targeted ICT products or services to identify if their features and functionalities have any barriers to access.
 
A VPAT assessment ensures that all applicable portions of the Section 508 standards, including the technical requirements, functional performance criteria, and information documentation and support requirements, are met.
 
VPAT assessment reports enable the identification and prioritization of all accessibility errors with a product or service, define the methods for addressing the issues, and document the product’s or service’s overall compliance with 508.
 
The assessments are used to improve the compliance of the targeted product or service and to create a VPAT accessibility conformance report (ACR) that epitomizes high levels of VPAT Section 508 compliance.
 

  • Hiring a third party to handle your VPAT Section 508 compliance

Have you ever read reviews about how so many VPAT Section 508 compliance statement and reports submitted by vendors are found to be ridiculously inaccurate? The bad information in the documents has been described in many quarters as being laughable.
 
A good number of the submissions give the impression of having been developed by people in a hurry. This denies the concerned businesses and organizations opportunities to win contracts to supply the associated products or services to institutions that are increasingly becoming accessibility-conscious. Discerning businesses and organizations are avoiding the embarrassment of submitting ridiculous VPAT statement and reports by enlisting the help of independent third-party professionals to help them with their VPAT compliance processes.
 
When a business embraces the winning strategy of hiring skilled third-party individuals to fill out VPAT documents for their products and services, they attain good Section 508 compliance levels that benefit from the experts’ extensive knowledge of Section 508 VPAT compliance and their ability to undertake thorough VPAT assessments that don’t overlook important features and functionalities of a product or service.
 
Section 508 VPAT compliance processes have also been found to be objective and tend not to get bogged down by biases that are rife in VPAT compliance processes undertaken by a business’ in-house teams.
 

  • Learning from VPAT compliance processes adjudged to be great

Reviewing and learning from a winning section 508 compliance testing or one that has been developed by a leading Section 508 compliance expert is also a viable strategy toward attaining a good VPAT Section 508 compliance level for your products or services.
 
Reviewing great or winning Section 508 ACRs will teach you how to detail your own ACRs, as well as how to make them concise and honest. Great VPAT ACRs also clearly disclose any shortcomings in the products or services they relate to, as well as explanations indicating the proposed remediation to deal with the shortcomings in the short- and long-term.
 
Need help with Section 508 VPAT compliance?
 
For more information on the strategies for achieving high-level VPAT Section 508 compliance or if you require third-party Section 508 VPAT compliance assistance, feel free to call (626) 486-2201 for free consultations. You can also get help if you need quick Section 508 VPAT Compliance Certification.