Accessibility Conformance Evaluation (ACE) Tool
The Electronic and Information Resource (EIR) Accessibility Conformance Evaluation (ACE) Tool, accessed via CAS login, is a secure resource for the campus community used to streamline the EIR Accessibility exception request process. Use the tool to:
- Browse through the alphabetical EIR listings or search for a specific EIR to leverage approved exceptions and create efficiencies during the procurement process. See instructions for using the ACE Tool.
- Analyze the linked vendor-completed Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs) - also known as Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACRs) - to understand access barriers individuals with disabilities may encounter. (In some cases, notations by the IT accessibility team provide more extensive explanations.)
- View examples of approved exceptions to aid you in completing your own request forms.
- More fully understand alternate means of access found within approved exceptions which may be helpful within your own unit.
- See how subsequent versions of a given EIR can provide the added benefit of enhanced accessibility in many cases, providing justification for procuring newer versions of useful IT products and services.
- Advocate for special pricing or shared services contracts for accessible EIR - if utilized by multiple TAMU units or if used extensively across campus - in order to facilitate greater access.
Did you know?
- In the United States, about 55 million people have a disability (src: 2010 U.S. Census).
- About 1 in 5 Americans have some kind of disability (src: 2010 U.S. Census).
- The percentage of people affected by disabilities is growing as our population ages.
- Two popular, free screen readers are VoiceOver (Mac OS and iOS) and NVDA (Win).
- Good accessibility practices can improve the search ranking of your website.
- Form fields without labels can cause problems for some assistive technology users.
- Low color contrast makes content difficult to see, especially for users with low vision.
- Documents linked on a website need to be accessible too (e.g., PDF and Word files).
- Audio content, like podcasts, need transcripts for deaf or hard of hearing users.
- Online videos should be captioned for deaf or hard of hearing users.
- Using HTML tags correctly is very important for accessibility.
- Descriptive link text helps make a website more accessible. Avoid using "Click here" or "Read more."
- A "screen reader" is an application that reads content aloud to a user.
- There is no "alt tag" in HTML. "Alt" is an attribute used with the img tag.
- HTML uses the alt attribute to provide a text description of an image.
- Alt text should describe an image, if the purpose of the image is to convey information.
- If an image is a link, the alt text for the image should explain where the link goes.
- If an image is only being used for decoration, the alt text should be null (i.e., alt="").
- If a table has headers, using header tags (<th>) will make the table more accessible.
- An accessible website is one that can be navigated and understood by everyone.