Procurement clauses for accessibility
This page is for procurement officers, project managers and evaluation panels. It gives sample wording for the accessibility part of a tender or contract for work around Exponential (design, implementation, hosting, support, training). Exponential itself is free software without a license fee; what you buy is the work, and accessibility must be part of it. Adapt the wording with your procurement and legal counsel.
Note This page describes features and common practice; it is not legal advice. Check the law that applies to your organization with your legal counsel.
Contents
- Principles
- Sample requirements
- Sample evidence requests
- Sample contract clauses
- Evaluating the answers
- Related pages
Principles
- Ask for outcomes you can test (WCAG 2.2 AA on the delivered site), not for adjectives ("accessible").
- Separate the software (the project's statement: admin4 "Partly complies", EN 301 549 and Section 508 "Unverified", no VPAT; Accessibility standards) from the deliverable (your design, your configuration, your content model).
- Make acceptance depend on a test, and defects on fixing.
Sample requirements
| No. | Requirement |
|---|---|
| A1 | The delivered public site meets WCAG 2.2 level AA on all page templates, forms and functions in scope. |
| A2 | The administration is configured with the admin4 (or admin4l) design for all editors. |
| A3 | Image attributes of content classes that editors use for informative images have "Alternative text is required" switched on, unless the contracting authority decides otherwise. |
| A4 | Templates write lang (and dir where needed) for every language siteaccess. |
| A5 | No template, stylesheet or script is delivered that removes the visible focus indicator without a replacement. |
| A6 | Media templates support captions and transcripts in the way agreed in the design phase. |
| A7 | The supplier delivers editor guidelines covering alternative text, headings, links, tables and documents. |
| A8 | The supplier delivers a list of activated extensions and states for each whether its public screens were tested. |
Sample evidence requests
- "Describe the accessibility status of the CMS you propose, using the vendor's or project's own words, with a link." A good answer about Exponential repeats "Partly complies" and "Unverified" and does not claim a VPAT.
- "Describe your test method (tools, assistive technologies, sample) and give an anonymized example of a test report from a previous project."
- "Name the people who will test, and their qualification."
Sample contract clauses
- Acceptance: the contracting authority (or an evaluator it appoints) evaluates the site against WCAG 2.2 AA with WCAG-EM before acceptance; findings of severity blocker or major prevent acceptance.
- Defects: accessibility failures are defects under the warranty and the support agreement, with the same response times as functional defects.
- Regression: every release that changes templates includes an automated check and a keyboard pass on the changed templates, with the results delivered.
- Evidence: the supplier hands over test reports and keeps them current for the term of the contract.
- Upgrades: when the supplier upgrades Exponential or an extension, it re-tests the affected pages.
Evaluating the answers
Score lower an answer that claims full conformance of the CMS or a VPAT for Exponential without evidence: the project itself makes no such claim. Score higher an answer with a concrete test method, named tools and examples.
Related pages
- Accessibility standards
- Testing your site's accessibility
- Implementation partners
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.