Legislative Compliance

In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued an update to the Title II ruling of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requiring public institutions to comply with accessibility standards by April 24, 2026. The mandate indicates that all public entities must ensure web content and mobile apps are made available directly—or through contracts and licensing—are readily accessible, and usable by individuals with disabilities. The ruling measures compliance against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 AA standards (U.S. Department of Justice, 2024).

With the April 2026 deadline looming, our collections assessment and licensing librarians here at the UW recently developed a renewal workflow that accounts for vendor Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs), keyboard navigation test assessments, and a renewal calendar. A workflow spreadsheet helps us keep track of related communications with vendors as subscriptions come up for renewal.

In our correspondence, we apply language that establishes a firm but cooperative stance. We genuinely want to help vendors bring their platforms into compliance, and we are eager to work with vendors that indicate a plan for making improvements. Here is an excerpt of the sample text we use in communications with vendors:

As part of the university’s obligation to comply with federal regulations … the University of Washington reviews all digital products for conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA before renewal.

Please provide a current Accessibility Conformance Report using the latest Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) and/or a roadmap outlining planned accessibility improvements for your product…

This messaging also allows us to proceed with canceling subscriptions where vendors have repeatedly demonstrated an unwillingness to improve accessibility. We can’t work with vendors who overtly shirk responsibility. For new vendors and platforms, we now require accessibility testing during a product trial phase before subscribing. Here again, if new vendors disregard the need for accessibility compliance, we won’t subscribe.

Procurement Process

When an existing subscription comes due for renewal, our Library Collection Strategy team engages a process that includes a keyboard navigation test, a VPAT assessment, and when necessary, vendor negotiations.

Keyboard Navigation Test. The keyboard navigation test involves a simple, manual process of navigating the user interface without a mouse. Using only the keyboard, the tester determines how well a search can be performed and how well media files can be accessed. The rationale here is that if a website is accessible using keyboard navigation, it will also work with various assistive technologies.

You can try the keyboard test yourself on any website or database by using the tab, shift, enter, spacebar, escape, and arrow keys. If you are able to search, select results, and play and pause media using only the keyboard, the site passes the test. For each source, the keyboard tester asks a series of yes-or-no questions:

• Can I perform a search using keyboard navigation?

• Can I select a result using keyboard navigation?

• Can I use the result (scroll, turn pages, etc.) using keyboard navigation?

Each question receiving a “no” answer, is assigned a score of “1.” The total resulting score is plotted on an inverted scale, from 0 to 3—where 0 is passing and 3 indicates likely un-usability by assistive technology. If a resource doesn’t pass the keyboard test, it is likely to be unusable by assistive technology. The keyboard test is just the first step in our process. If a resource passes this initial screening, further testing is still needed.

Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). UW Libraries also evaluates select details of the vendor’s Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, or VPAT, which documents how an information product conforms with WCAG 2.1 AA standards, the same guidelines used in Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Suffice to say:

• VPATs can be long, complicated, and overwhelming to read.

• The existence of a VPAT does not necessarily ensure accessibility.

• VPATs are ideally completed by a third-party accessibility consultant but instead they are often completed by a vendor’s marketing team who may lack necessary expertise.

To account for these complexities, UW Libraries assessment focuses on select, key details that provide a good indicator of overall VPAT quality. We are able to learn a lot about the quality of the VPAT metadata details and three success criteria, as articulated in Table 2.

Aligned with the timing of product subscription renewals, our annual assessment involves a rubric (Table 3) that yields a VPAT score, which, when added to the keyboard test score, equals an Accessibility Risk Score on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest risk. For example, VPAT metadata tells us which WCAG version it was tested against, which tools were used in testing, and the date it was created. A VPAT that was created more than two years ago or tested against an outdated WCAG standard could be very out of date and no longer reflective of the current state of the product. Some VPATs don’t list the specific tools used in the testing process; this lack of transparency can be a good indicator of VPAT reliability. We’re more likely to trust what a VPAT says if they listed several specific tools used in the testing process.

The three success criteria on which we focus are all indicative of how well the product can be used with assistive technology. While each WCAG criterion is important for full accessibility, usability by assistive technology – including keyboard navigation – is our minimal baseline requirement.

When a product trends towards inaccessibility, we ask the vendor to add accessibility language to the license. The verbiage often manifests as an affirmation of intent to make improvements. It also indemnifies the university against any lawsuits. We may request a one-year license with intent to renew only if improvements are made.

In general, our approach is one of collaboration in which we are prepared to educate vendors about accessibility—sharing our findings and providing guidance to making improvements. When a vendor is receptive and demonstrates a commitment to progress by sharing timelines, roadmaps, or concrete plans, it makes a meaningful difference. If a vendor shows sustained improvement and a willingness to grow, that good faith effort can tip the scale toward renewal.

In the interest of advocating for greater awareness about accessibility, UW Libraries maintains a public list on our website of ongoing assessment results for all library-subscribed databases. Table 3 provides an excerpt of recent evaluations, illustrating test results for select business-subject databases.

Vendor Response So Far

As you might expect, vendors’ responses to date have run the gamut from diligent to aloof. Our experience with commercially focused vendors--those primarily serving business clientele--is that they may be more inclined than others to dismiss the need for accessibility compliance. We speculate that perhaps this low priority is because vendors themselves are not public institutions or because public universities may not account for a significant enough customer base to warrant attention.

In general though, many vendors indicate they are committed to improvements, even if follow-up action may be slow. Without naming names, here are a few of our experiences:

• Vendor focused on compliance in new platform versions, opting not to bring legacy platforms into compliance.

• Vendor with a strong record for working with academic institutions provided an improved VPAT but was still not fully compliant. Provided with an articulated plan to work with their development team to address the remaining issues, we renewed the database for two years as we await improvements.

• Vendor demonstrated initial responsiveness by making improvements to address specific accessibility problems; we reported but their subsequent unwillingness to legally commit to full compliance by the DOJ deadline resulted in us canceling.

• As for the popular database cited at the beginning of this article, the Vendor initially said they were committed to improving access, but their legal team later pushed back, claiming that the DOJ ruling didn’t apply to their product. We negotiated generic contract language indicating the vendor would make an effort to comply but renewed for only one year.

Based on their correspondence, vendors appear to be genuine in their commitment to accessibility; however, the process for bringing a product into compliance often requires significantly more resources than vendors initially anticipate.