This article provides help to employees to review digital accessibility in their applications before purchasing. We provide questions to guide your initial review of products and know what to ask vendors before making technology purchases.
Why this Resource?
We spend a lot of money every year on software and hardware purchases. That amount has only risen in the past decade because of the move to software subscription models. And we should therefore expect a significant return on those investments in terms of usability and accessibility for our users.
But what does accessibility mean for the University of St. Thomas (UST)? Digital Accessibility means that all people, including people with disabilities and those using assistive technology, have effective access to: Digital content, technology applications, and electronic information technology (EIT). Technology (software, hardware, apps) we purchase needs to be digitally accessible.
Questions to Ask Our Vendors
If you’re looking at a tool under the $10K Request for Proposal (RFP) threshold, you should be asking potential software/app vendors the following questions. If you are going through an RFP (the tool is $10K or more), these questions are already included in that process.
- What types of automated and manual accessibility testing procedures do you perform? Ask what parts are manual and what parts are automated or Artificial Intelligence (AI) will help you know what more about their commitment to accessibility and also point you to additional things you may want to also test out.
- Do all system images utilize Alt Text and/or longer image descriptions? When photos, graphics, infographics are used, Alt Text and/or image descriptions are essential so both sighted and screen reader users have full access to the content.
- Does all media within the system utilize accurate closed captioning? All vendors should offer captioning for any video materials. Ideally, we also want to ask how they create their captioning and their quality controls. For example, does that vendor hire another captioning services to create their captions, or do they use Artificial Intelligence/automated creation of Closed Captioning and then a process to also have a human review for quality check, to correct for proper names etc?
- Are all system functions functional using a screen reader like JAWS or iMax? It can be helpful to ask a vendor what their process is for testing via a screen reader (and which ones).
- Are all system functions accessible using a keyboard (not only using a mouse and keyboard)? Knowing a system was built and tested with keyboard functionality in mind will help the experience be more functional for screen reader users.
- What is the process your company uses if an accessibility issue is identified by a a customer or organization that has purchased your product? And do you have a timeline for ensuring resolution of high-priority issues within a reasonable timeline? We want to be certain that vendors are not just giving lip service to identified issues, but that they actually resolve them.
- If your most recent version of your Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) on your website for us to review? A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template is a template containing information regarding how an Information and communications technology product or service conforms with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
We want our St Thomas colleagues to be considering these questions as you are exploring or checking out current or future partnerships with various vendors. Things continue to change quickly; learning and continual development is vital to be not only compliant but also relevant moving forward.
If you need further assistance (guidance about what to ask the vendor and how to ask it), please contact us via the Digital Accessibility Services request form — select “Other” under what you’re requesting help with.
Learn more about Digital Accessibility
Anyone using digital content or technology at St. Thomas is advised to enroll in the Digital Accessibility Basics badge and learning site.
Please consider other articles that guide you to more learning: Digital Accessibility Introduction: What, Why and How?