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Re: [EXTERNAL]Getting Your Website Accessibility Certified

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From: Mark Magennis
Date: Sep 19, 2019 8:43AM


Yes, the level of detail in VPATs varies enormously, and the truth of VPATs varies even more. Honestly, most VPATs I've looked at are complete works of fiction. "Supports, Supports, Supports, ... " when the truth is "Partially Supports, Partially Supports, Does not support, ...". My advice for procurers is to take VPATs with a bucket of salt and have the product tested by an independent third party.

Mark

Mark Magennis
Skillsoft | mobile: +353 87 60 60 162
Accessibility Specialist


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Steve Green
Sent: 19 September 2019 03:31
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [WebAIM] Getting Your Website Accessibility Certified

You can also do a VPAT certificate, which provides far more granular compliance information than an accessibility statement. It also shows who did the testing, when they did it and what was in and out of scope. Unlike an accessibility statement, it has a consistent structure so every VPAT looks the same regardless of who wrote it. That said, the level of detail that people provide can vary a lot.

https://www.itic.org/policy/accessibility/vpat

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of glen walker
Sent: 18 September 2019 23:47
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Getting Your Website Accessibility Certified

There is no "official" certification you can do. That is, there is no governing body that monitors or grants certificates. It's not like an Underwriters Laboratory seal like you can get in the United States with regards to electronic equipment.

What you can do is write an accessibility statement. See https://www.w3.org/WAI/planning/statements/

You can document your commitment to accessibility, what you've done to achieve compliance, what your future plans are, how you test, etc. The aforementioned URL has a lot of good information.

As Lucy said, even if you documented that a site was 100% compliant, the next time code gets pushed to production, it might break that compliance.
So a "certificate" is only good for the day you write it and then it's expired.