section 508

The following directory contains a list of companies which provide a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template of their products. The links point to the page of the company's web sites where the VPATs are posted. All VPATs open in a new window.

Please note that we are not responsible for the content of the VPATs and their accessibility, we only provide space for companies to list their products.

On April 3, 2008 the Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee (TEITAC) delivered its final report to the Access Board. In 2006, the committee was tasked with putting together a set of recommendations to update the currently existing standards mandated by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act.

Even Grounds launched a new Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) directory. VPATs are used to determine the Section 508 compliance of a certain product. When VPATs are provided, they can help speeding up U.S. government procurement procedure.

While VPATs are available on the internet, presently they are only available within other services. Even Grounds hopes to help providing a quick way to access this collection.

One way to expose accessibility features of your product is to create a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) to detail how you comply with the federal Section 508 standards. This way, you save valuable research time for interested agencies, and get much closer to sell your product to companies and government agencies who require accessibility. While VPATs are currently used to describe Section 508 compliance, any accessibility standards and guidelines, such as WCAG can be applied in a similar format.

It is not widely known that a government procurement procedure includes checking for Section 508 compliance. Section 508 requires accessibility for people with disabilities when the Federal Government develops, procures, maintains and uses products. If a product does not comply with this legislation, in most circumstances it is automatically disqualified. If you were still able to sell products to the government which were not Section 508 compliant, most likely the procurement process was not properly administered.