Questions

Questions for use in procurement of accessible ICT products

When preparing a Request for Proposal for ICT products, including accessibility as part of the evaluation and review process is essential. The following questions are intended to provide a starting point when planning the procurement of an ICT product.

Questions

Introductory and policy questions

• Name, title, and contact information for the most appropriate person dealing with accessibility.
• Provide any written statements your organization has about digital accessibility.
• Describe the extent to which your product is accessible to people with disabilities. Please include all common types of visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive disabilities.
• Provide a statement of how the solution complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA, or AS EN 301 549, including any known areas of non-compliance.
• Describe your technical experience in developing information and communication technology products meeting the latest release of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2 Level AA or the AS EN 301 549 standard for other Information and Communication Technology.

Process and conformance

• Do you have a process for verifying accessibility conformance?
• Have you adopted a technical or legal accessibility standard of conformance for any, or all, of your products?
• When do you think about the accessibility of your product?
  • At the design stage, during the development stage, or later on after it has been developed or released?
• Do you use a third-party accessibility evaluation company to verify your accessibility compliance?
  • If so, are you willing to provide a copy of your most recent evaluation report?
• Has an ACR (or VPAT) been created or updated for the product and version under consideration within the past year?
  • Did you create the ACR yourselves or get an independent expert to create it?
  • Is the documentation publicly available? If so, can you provide the URL to the documentation?
• Do you have a process for reporting and tracking accessibility issues?

Accessibility Testing

When do you perform accessibility testing?

• During the design and development phases or before the product is about to be released?

What automated and manual testing do you perform to test and evaluate applications for accessibility for people with disability?

• Please describe your testing process in detail.

Which assistive technologies on the Windows OS, macOS and mobile platforms do you test with in order to evaluate access for people with disability?

• Please describe and provide supporting evidence of your assistive technology testing process.

Do you have accessibility experts in your design/development/testing team or do you hire outside accessibility consultants?

• If external, what accessibility consulting company do you work with?

Have you used end-users with disabilities to test your product?

• How many and from which disability groups?

Does your product undergo accessibility testing prior to each major release?

Can you provide examples of where and how your team have delivered accessibility for another client?

Can we approach them for references specifically with respect to the accessibility of your product?

Functionality

• Are there any accessibility features in your product that you are particularly proud of and would like to highlight?
• Can the accessibility features of your product be individually enabled and/or disabled?
• Can any updates which have caused an accessibility problem be rolled back – for everyone, or preferably for individual users should that be necessary?
• Can all functions of the application or service be performed using only the keyboard (i.e., no mouse)?
• Describe any modifications, peripherals, etc., that can be used to make inaccessible features of your product functionally accessible.
• Does your product rely on activating a special “accessibility mode,” a “lite version,” or accessing an alternate interface for accessibility purposes?
• Describe how any exported documents are accessible at a level equivalent to WCAG 2.1 Level AA and can be accessed using assistive technology.

Product Support

• Do you have specific documentation to support the accessibility features of your product?
• Do you provide any support or guides in how to use your product effectively with other assistive technologies?
• Do you provide a support channel for users with disability to contact you if they experience issues with your product?
• What’s your roadmap to improve the product’s accessibility and how are you going to keep the product accessible going forwards?
• On average, how quickly do you respond to critical accessibility issues found on your software?
• If you can’t deliver accessibility in a release, what will you do to mitigate this?
  • How will you be transparent and give us notice of issues?

Additional Resources

• Purchasing and Licensing Accessible Video Conferencing Platforms that Work for Everyone (Disability:IN, 2021)

Please note: We view this as a living resource and welcome feedback. We are improving our website to ensure this content is fully accessible for all users. There is also a fully accessible version of the content available on the ADCET website. We welcome feedback about the content and its accessibility as part of our ongoing process for improvement — email procurement@caudit.edu.au.