WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: VPATs for Word, PPT, Excel, etc.

for

From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Jun 4, 2018 5:25PM

`> So… my take-away thus far is that agencies can set any expectations for
VPATs (or not) that they want.

No, not really. A VPAT is the legal document that says "yes our deliverable
meets the standards." Many departments (HHS, DHS, SSA, and VA - there may
be a few others) took the legalese and put it into friendlier language, and
in the form of a checklist. Section 508 Coordinators have the authority to
make these decisions and interpretations. What each agency accepts is up to
each agency, but there is a strong effort to make one checklist for each
file type. My recommendation is, if you're providing a service to a federal
agency, and you're not 100% on how they handle 508, or documentation of
it, ask to speak to the agency 508 Coordinator. If your COR can't/won't do
this, please see https://section508.gov/tools/coordinator-listing.

> Do you use the PDF/UA flag as part of your deliverable?

Speaking with knowledge of HHS only. HHS has used PDF/UA as a basis for our
March 2013 release of the PDF checklist. We don't cover every element of
the PDF/UA checklist because there's 130 or so checks in UA's requirements,
as one of 2 primary authors, I knew handing a checklist of 130 to the
various groups that needed to sign off on it, it would never fly. UA is not
explicitly mentioned in the 2013 version because that would blow up for
using a new term. HHS requires our PDF checklist for PDF deliverable. The
checklist is required because there's no 100% accurate test, though I know
some third-party tools come close.



--
Ryan E. Benson

On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Duff Johnson < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> So… my take-away thus far is that agencies can set any expectations for
> VPATs (or not) that they want.
>
> Next question is for those providing services, specifically,
> testing/remediation of PDF documents:
>
> Do you use the PDF/UA flag as part of your deliverable?
>
> Based on what I'm hearing it seems like it would be very handy to have a
> machine-readable indicator that applies to each individual deliverable
> file, as the file would then contain its own certification.
>
> The service-provider could then simply state that when they apply the
> PDF/UA flag it is their indication that the file has passed tests for
> Section 508 conformance.
>
> Of course, it's on the agency adding the flag to ensure that the file
> conforms to WCAG 2.0 Level AA (assuming that's what applicable in a given
> scenario) as well as PDF/UA, but if you are already doing the latter the
> former should be no big deal.
>
> I'm curious to hear any reactions (positive or negative)...
>
> Duff.
>
>
> > On Jun 4, 2018, at 09:38, Jonathan Avila < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
> >
> >> This is unexpected so I'm looking to find out what they're really
> expecting since we'd have to rethink our strategy by quite a bit. When I
> asked the DHS what the typical expectation was, I was given a link to the
> trusted tester page, in which there was, among several files, an 84-page
> document on how to test Word files for accessibility!
> >
> > There is an accompanying results spreadsheet for the trusted tester
> process that is to be completed by the Trusted Tester. This spreadsheet
> doesn't appear to be available on the public site but is available on a
> site that is for people who have passed the Trusted Tester Certification
> process. It would document all of the items necessary to understand the
> compliance of the document although not in the same form as a VPAT. As
> others have mentioned many agencies including HHS and VA have their own
> checklists and processes and an agency may ask you to complete their
> documentation in the format/wording that they prefer to have.
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> >