Instructions for Using the ACE Tool
Using the Accessibility Conformance Evaluation, or ACE Tool, can help expedite accessibility reviews for Electronic and Information Resources (EIR) during the procurement process.
1: Engage vendors
Engage vendors in conversations to determine potential solutions for your business needs. During this step, ask about accessibility compliance and enhancements, making sure to inquire how individuals with specific disabilities can access the product or solution.
2: Check the ACE Tool for specific VPATs
Consult the searchable online ACE Tool to see if vendor-completed VPATs are available. Make sure to verify that versions within the tool are the same as the solutions being considered. If the product is not listed, or if a VPAT link - shown in blue within the tool - is not available, contact the vendor to secure a completed VPAT.
3: Choose the most accessible product
Weigh your options and choose the most accessible product which meets your business need. (Not sure how to do this? Contact ITaccessibility@tamu.edu for help.) If the resource is fully compliant, no further action is needed. If not fully compliant, proceed to 4.
4: Check the ACE Tool for exceptions, if needed
If the chosen solution is not fully compliant, check the ACE Tool for any exceptions already in place, and proceed in the following ways:
- If a System-wide or Campus-wide accessibility exception is documented, notify procurement personnel by referencing the resource listing within the ACE Tool.
- If a College or Departmental accessibility exception is in place for your specific unit, the IT accessibility team must confirm that the version and scope of use are the same, in which case an additional exception request may not be required.
- If neither applies, proceed to 5.
5: Fill out an exception request, if needed
Fill out an EIR Accessibility Exception request for routing and review by university leadership, taking care to establish the appropriate means of providing accommodations within your unit.
6: Assign responsibiity for facilitating accommodations
When utilizing any EIR that does not fully conform to W3C Worldwide Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1), Level AA (and functional performance criteria when applicable,) make sure you note the specific means of accommodations for individuals with disabilities. This responsibility, along with facilitating the actual accommodation, should be assigned to someone within your unit, so that equitable access to EIR is ensured.
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.