Your VPAT Is Being Read by a Buyer. Here Is What They Actually Check.

A procurement officer opens your VPAT, the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, and reads it for about ninety seconds. They are not reading it the way you wrote it. They are looking for three things: which standard you claim, which criteria you admit you fail, and whether the person who filled it in knew what they were doing. A VPAT that says Supports on every line is not a strong VPAT. It is an unread VPAT, because no product supports everything, and the buyer knows it.

What a VPAT is

A VPAT is a self-reported Accessibility Conformance Report, an ACR, built on the VPAT template. The current edition, VPAT 2.5, covers WCAG 2.2, the Revised Section 508 standards, and EN 301 549, the European standard. The vendor fills in one of four answers per criterion: Supports, Partially Supports, Does Not Support, or Not Applicable, plus remarks explaining the answer. The report is a procurement document. Federal buyers use it to compare products under Section 508, and private buyers use it the same way, because it is the only standardized format in the field.

The honest answer matters more than the good answer. A criterion marked Partially Supports with a clear remark, a named failure, and a dated fix, reads as credible. A criterion marked Supports with no remark reads as untested. And a criterion marked Supports that a buyer's own test contradicts is worse than a failure: it turns a product gap into a credibility gap, and credibility is what the buyer is actually buying.

The three lines buyers read first

First, the criteria a buyer already knows their users hit: keyboard operability, focus visibility, and name, role, value on controls. A Does Not Support on 2.1.1 Keyboard is a deal-killer for a procurement officer who has users who cannot use a mouse, and no amount of Supports elsewhere in the document compensates for it. Second, the remarks column. Empty remarks on a criterion the buyer knows is hard, like 1.4.10 Reflow or 2.4.7 Focus Visible, read as a form filled in by someone who never tested the product. Third, the evaluation methods section at the top, which names how the report was produced: automated scan only, or scan plus manual testing with a screen reader. A report based on a scan alone tells the buyer the vendor does not know what a scan cannot see.

The buyer also checks the date. A VPAT dated two major versions ago, describing a product that has shipped three redesigns since, is a stale document, and a stale VPAT is treated as no VPAT. The report should be refreshed on every major release, and the version it describes should be named in the document itself.

The answer that kills the deal

The answer that kills the deal is not Does Not Support. It is Supports, everywhere, with no remarks, on a product the buyer can test in five minutes and find failing. One contradiction and the whole document is discarded, and with it the vendor's accessibility claims in the sales call. The fix is unglamorous: test the product properly, write down what fails, put a date on the fix, and let the buyer see the work. A VPAT that says Partially Supports on six criteria and names the remediation quarter is a stronger sales document than a perfect one nobody believes. For the statement that sits next to the VPAT on the same site, see what belongs in an accessibility statement, and for the form failures a buyer will find first, why placeholder text is not a label.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a VPAT and an ACR?

A VPAT is the template. An ACR, Accessibility Conformance Report, is the completed document produced with that template. People use the terms interchangeably, but the template is the blank form and the report is the filled-in version for your product.

Which edition of the VPAT should we use?

VPAT 2.5, which covers WCAG 2.2, Revised Section 508, and EN 301 549. Older editions cover older standards, and a buyer comparing products will notice the edition before they notice anything else.

Is it better to mark a criterion Partially Supports than to leave it blank?

Yes, by a wide margin. Partially Supports with a clear remark and a fix date reads as credible. A blank or an unremarked Supports reads as untested, and a Supports that the buyer's own test contradicts kills the document's credibility.

How often should a VPAT be refreshed?

On every major release, at minimum. The report should name the product version it describes. A VPAT two versions old, describing a product that has shipped three redesigns since, is treated as no VPAT.