Working toward accessibility with the wearer of the shoe!
As a person with disabilities, always keep in mind that your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go, but merely where you can start. Don’t let your mind limit what your able heart encourages you to do. That is the essence of ADA compliance!
What is ADA compliance for a person with disability?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) forbids discrimination against people with disabilities in a variety of settings, including employment, transportation, public accommodations, communications, and access to state and local government programs and services.
As a person with disabilities, this means that all electronic information and technology (EIT) products and services must be accessible to you. The amendment of Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act has strengthened ADA compliance.
The change, popularly known as “Revised Section 508,” requires federal agencies' EIT goods and services to be accessible to people with disabilities, including their employees and members of the public who have disabilities.
Section 508 compliance
Section 508 compliance vpat refers to the ecosystem of practices designed to ensure that the federal government and its agencies acquire, create, utilize, and maintain EIT that is accessible to people with disabilities, regardless of whether they work for the federal government or its agencies.
The foregoing are the tenets of 508 compliance,which should inspire every person who has disabilities to establish their role in ensuring the federal government and its agencies promote accessibility by purchasing and deploying EIT products that do not obscure people with disabilities from accessing electronic communication and technology. That is the purpose of this article: to encourage people with disabilities to deploy their exquisite capabilities toward helping to improve the accessibility of EIT products or services!
If you’re a person with a disability, there are many ways you can contribute to the goal of enhanced accessibility of EIT products and services. As the wearer of the shoe, no one can better tell the extent to which an EIT product or service is for people with a disability similar to yours than you.
You can, therefore, choose to not let manufacturers and vendors grope in the darkness over whether their EIT products and services are accessible to people with a disability similar to yours. You can do this by providing unsolicited feedback upon testing their EIT product or service, participating in the VPAT certification of the products or services, or seeking to join their product or service development teams. In this article, we provide you with information about how you can help with VPAT certification.
VPAT certification
To assist with VPAT testing for EIT products and services, you must first understand the VPAT ecosystem, which includes words like as “VPAT certification,” “VPAT accessibility,” “VPAT compliance,” “VPAT accessibility conformance report (ACR”),” and “accessibility VPAT,” among others.
Keep in mind that, contrary to what the title implies, VPAT certification does not include the presentation of a certificate. There is no certification document, certification process, or certification authority. It simply refers to the development of a VPAT report in accordance with the applicable accessibility standard. This includes doing a thorough VPAT exam before to accurately, precisely, and completely filling out the appropriate VPAT version.
As a person with disability, your insights during the VPAT testing can help the EIT product or service assessment team flag the accessibility flaws in the product or service. This will help them to improve the product or service before making it available in the market or to indicate the flaws in the product's or service’s VPAT ACR so that potential buyers can make informed decisions when considering it for procurement alongside similar products or services.
VPAT accessibility
VPAT accessibility is another term within the VPAT ecosystem of terms that you will need to master. Many people confuse “VPAT accessibility” with “accessibility VPAT.”
VPAT accessibility could refer to the process of making a properly completed VPAT available to potential buyers by posting it on an accessible website, providing it to any potential buyer who requests it, or simply using the checklist or criteria provided in the appropriate VPAT edition to test the accessibility of an EIT product or service and documenting the results in an ACR.
In contrast, accessibility VPAT refers to using the right VPAT edition to test an EIT product or service and generate a VPAT report. If, for example, you want your EIT product or service to be purchased by federal agencies, the VPAT Section 508 edition is the one to utilize. If you want your product or service to enter the European Union market, the VPAT EU (EN 301 549) edition is the rightaccessibility VPAT to use.
Aside from the VPAT Section 508 and VPAT EU editions, two further VPAT editions exist: the VPAT web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) and the VPAT international (INT). The accessibility VPAT WCAG is used to document the accessibility of EIT products or services based on the WCAG standard, whereas the accessibility VPAT INT is used to document the accessibility of EIT products and services intended for the international market.
Needto learn more about VPAT testing in disability?
You can learn more about“VPAT testing in disability” by reviewing a professionally completed VPAT certification or by calling ADA Compliance Pros at (626) 486-220 for expert assistance.
