Best Practices for Ensuring Accessibility in IT Resources

Steps an agency should take to ensure accessibility when acquiring IT solutions, from business requirement development and market research through implementation and maintenance.

Overview

All IT solutions used by the Commonwealth must follow the Enterprise Information Technology Accessibility Policy. This guide is intended to help agencies ensure that IT solutions they procure comply with that policy. It describes the steps an agency should take to ensure accessibility throughout the procurement process, from business requirement development and market research through implementation and maintenance.

Business requirements and market research

1. During project scoping/ideation phase, consider how users will interact with the system, and what accessibility considerations need to be considered up front.
   • How will users interact with the technology? Will there need to be accessibility considerations for point-and-click, audio, or visual components?
   • Who are the users, and how many are there?  What kind of user roles will there be? You need to be most stringent about built-in accessibility for systems that will be used by other agencies, municipalities, business partners, and the general public.
   • Consider whether you will have additional requirements for the intended audience, such as compliance with some or all of WCAG 2.1 Level AAA.
   • Consider whether you want to highlight specific standards in the Enterprise Information Technology Accessibility Policy, such as PDF or kiosk accessibility standards.
2. If issuing a Request for Information (RFI), ask about accessibility features and development practices.

Procurement Stage

1. When selecting strategic sourcing team (SST) members, include one or more subject matter experts on accessibility. This might be your agency’s ADA coordinator, your agency’s IT Accessibility Office, an ITS61 vendor, or a representative from Massachusetts Office on Disability.
2. When drafting the Request for Quotes (RFQ) or Request for Responses (RFR):
   • Include an accessibility subject matter expert, such as your agency’s ADA Coordinator, your agency’s IT Accessibility Office, an ITS61 vendor, or a representative from Massachusetts Office on Disability in requirements discussions to help identify accessibility requirements.
   • Include Mandatory Contract Language for Executive Department Solicitations, Accessibility Language for IT Contracts, incorporated in the Requirements Section or as an addendum.
   • Include questions in the bid solicitation response template to elicit Vendor’s ability to provide an accessible product/service.
   • Notify vendors that bids will be evaluated on accessibility (both the product’s compliance with accessibility requirements and vendor’s demonstrated ability to maintain accessibility over time). Include accessibility documentation (such as Accessibility Conformance Reports, ACRs) in your Checklist of required attachments.
   •  Require new versions of any provided Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACRs) (such as a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)) for any part of the solution that has a user interface whenever new versions of software are released (especially for SaaS or other cloud offerings) or at least annually.
3.  Include accessibility in the evaluation criteria. (Model on security criteria.)
   • Awarding points based on bidder’s demonstration of product’s conformance with IT Policy. Consider scoring both on conformance and explanation of how they achieve/fail to achieve conformance.
     • Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR): acceptable level of stated conformance, substantial explanation of how the product does or does not conform.
     • Demonstration of using proposed solution with common assistive technologies and keyboard-only.
     • Timeline showing when known problems will be addressed.
   • Commonwealth accessibility testing results:
     • Comparison to what is reported in ACRs.
     • Usability for assistive technology users.
   • Awarding points based on Vendor’s response about how accessibility issues will be resolved: Does their team demonstrate appropriate knowledge of and ability to resolve accessibility issues? Do they have a reasonable plan for how accessibility issues will be addressed?
4. When evaluating bids, review bids for compliance with accessibility requirements.
   • Ensure that SST is mindful of and understands accessibility needs
   • Review bidders’ Accessibility Conformance Report(s) (ACRs). This can be done either by an ITS61 Category B vendor (for large/public-facing products), or by an internal subject matter expert (for smaller, simpler, internal-facing projects) or Massachusetts Office on Disability (MOD).
     • Verify that the ACR includes the elements needed: description of how the product was tested and who did the testing, compliance with our standard (WCAG version 2.1,) and responses to Functional Performance Criteria (if not in full compliance with standards.)
     • Most ACRs will not show full conformance — a good ACR explains how the product fails to conform and may include information on when and how they plan to address any nonconformities.
     • Failure to provide explanation of how a product conforms/doesn’t conform may indicate that the vendor doesn’t fully understand the issue. Be mindful of vendors that claim full support but lack comments about how accessibility was achieved; this may indicate failure to fully understand the requirements.
   • Ensure bidders’ products are accessible by testing products for accessibility during the bid evaluation stage.
     • For products that are external facing and/or will serve more than 100 users, enlist an ITS61 Category B vendor to review the ACR and/or test the software. It is not recommended to rely on internal testers for large projects.
     • For small, internal-facing products, ensure the bidders’ products are accessible by enlisting one of the following:
       • Internal IT Accessibility subject matter experts
       • Massachusetts Office on Disability (MOD)
       • An ITS61 Category B vendor
   • Adopt a repeatable methodology for testing accessibility of the system. Methodology should include checking for accessibility of all main components and tasks that a user will need to access.
5. Large projects (measured by cost, time, scope and/or audience) should identify an Accessibility Advisory Committee (AAC) after bid award but prior to executing the contract.
   • It is good practice to identify Commonwealth-appointed members of the AAC during the procurement process, prior to bid award, so that convening the AAC does not delay executing the contract. Vendors should identify Vendor-appointed AAC members during bid negotiations.
6. Ensure that accessibility testing activities outlined in the Mandatory Contract Language for Executive Department Solicitations related to the Acquisition of Information Technology Systems are included in project timeline and milestone information required in the bid submission and/or the negotiated Statement of Work.
7. After bid award, but prior to contract execution, develop a mitigation plan in coordination with vendor to be included in the contract.
   • Mitigation plan will be based on issues identified during the evaluation of the product.
   • A mitigation plan is used when a product doesn’t comply with the EOTSS IT Accessibility Policy at the time of procurement; you will know you need a mitigation plan if the ACR shows less than full compliance.
   • The mitigation plan will give an overview of the project and the accessibility analysis, and will provide a plan for how the vendor and the Commonwealth will mitigate accessibility issues, including:
     • Reasonable accommodations that the agency will need to provide until accessibility issues have been fixed, and how users will request these accommodations
     • Planned fixes to product defects and a timeline for addressing the fixes.
     • Guidance/assistance in working around inaccessible features (e.g., don’t use the star-rating widget, use the customer personalization feature to fix color contrast problems).
   • You will need to update the mitigation plan periodically as needed to reflect updated audit testing.
   • Agency ADA Coordinators should be provided with a copy of the mitigation plan.

Implementation Stage

1. Ensure product owners are aware of accessibility responsibilities included in the completed contract and that required accessibility activities are included in project timelines and milestones.  This includes vendor and Commonwealth testing, any required documentation updates, product fixes included in the mitigation plan, etc.
2. Enlist an ITS61 Category A vendor to complete an accessibility audit prior to go live. Use the sample RFQ in COMMBUYS to post, make sure to be as specific as possible, include UAT scenarios or user cases to help the vendor understand the scope.
3. If the vendor will be providing trainings to staff, conduct accessibility testing on trainings to ensure that trainings are also accessible. You can use an ITS61 vendor or you can contact Massachusetts Office on Disability for help testing the trainings.

Maintenance Stage

1. Ensure upgrades/updates to system do not break accessibility.
2. Continue with periodic accessibility audits via ITS61 vendor, as appropriate and/or as defined in the solicitation, and/or as recommended by the project’s AAC.
3. Identify who is responsible for monitoring ongoing accessibility compliance, who is responsible for maintaining accessibility compliance (agency staff overseeing product/QA group/vendor/ITS61 vendor), and who is responsible for maintaining the mitigation plan as needed.
4. Ask vendor to produce Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) on an annual basis and after every upgrade/update.
   • You can use an ITS61 Category B vendor or contact MOD for assistance with interpreting this report and identifying next steps

Resources

• Massachusetts Office on Disability can advise on options and resources within the Commonwealth. Email [e-mail].  
• Federal Accessibility Requirements Tool from GSA - a step-by-step guide to help you easily identify relevant accessibility requirements from the Revised 508 Standards, and incorporate them into your procurement and contracting documentation, as well as in-house IT development.
• MN Procurement for accessible IT products and services
• GSA is working to create a database of ACRs so that agencies can start a procurement process by searching the database before posting a solicitation. They are designing it so that the vendors keep it updated per the vendor's schedule, and they are not in the business of uploading documents. This would rely on the vendor, which some think is optimistic.
• Indiana’s Accessible Technology Procurement Toolkit, Disability: INclusive Workspaces