Thread by @CorruptedSight

When I worked for government as a digital accessibility person, I had to deal with a lot of venders who claimed that their product was accessible. Here are some questions I used to ask them to find out whether or not they meant it. #a11y #accessibility

Does your company have a VPAT for the product in question? Is it using the current standard? How old is the VPAT? Is it accessible for both content creators and end users?

The folks in these conversations are usually customer reps and lawyers that will repeatedly say “Our products are all compliant. The developers told me.” However, they will not be able to name one single person that can take responsibility for this.

That’s why you should ask, does your company have an accessibility team? Or does the product in question have an accessibility lead? Ideally, everyone at the company does their part for accessibility but it would be too easy for a company to make that claim without backing it up

If there is no accessibility person or team at the company, that will tell you a lot about their lack of commitment to accessibility. If there is an accessibility person or team ask to meet with them and ask about their process. Is accessibility included at the start?

Also, ask for working examples and demos. They should be able to show you how their product works with assistive technologies. If they cannot provide a demo, it is most likely because their product is not accessible and no one has called them out on it

During the demo, pay attention to how comfortable they are using things like screen readers. A lot of these demos were conducted by folks who do not use assistive technologies in their everyday life. Ask them in depth questions to make sure they are not just following a script.

For example, it’s great that your product provides an alternative view to access the data. Can screen reader users filter that data while they are in the accessible view?

Whether or not they can provide a demo, you should ask them if they have step by step guidance on how to use their product with assistive technologies. If they do not have any, then it becomes clearer that they did not put in the work.

Finally, be open to follow up conversations. Sometimes a vender is not there yet and all they need is a wake up call in the form of you. Some venders seemed hopeless at first but then put in the effort after an embarrassing initial conversation about accessibility.