VPAT Generation

AllyProof generates draft Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) documents covering all 56 WCAG 2.2 Level AA success criteria. VPATs are the standard format for communicating product accessibility conformance to procurement teams.

What Is a VPAT?

A VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) is a document created by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) that vendors use to describe how their product conforms to accessibility standards. Procurement officers at government agencies and enterprises use VPATs to evaluate whether a product meets their accessibility requirements.

VPATs are not legally mandated, but they are effectively required for selling to US federal agencies (Section 508), EU public sector (EN 301 549), and increasingly for state and local government and enterprise procurement.

VPAT 2.5 Editions

AllyProof supports all four VPAT 2.5 Rev editions:

How AllyProof Generates VPATs

VPAT generation follows a multi-step process that maps scan results to the 56 WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria:

1. Criteria mapping — Each axe-core and HTML_CodeSniffer rule maps to one or more WCAG success criteria. AllyProof maintains a mapping table that links rule IDs to criteria numbers.
2. Conformance classification — For each of the 56 criteria, AllyProof determines a conformance level based on scan results:
   • Supports — No violations found for rules mapped to this criterion
   • Partially Supports — Some violations found, but not on all scanned pages
   • Does Not Support — Violations found across most or all scanned pages
   • Not Evaluated — No automated rules map to this criterion (requires manual testing)
3. Evidence collection — For each criterion with violations, AllyProof includes the specific rule IDs, violation counts, affected pages, and severity levels as supporting remarks.
4. AI executive summary — Claude Haiku generates a plain-language executive summary that describes the overall conformance posture, highlights key strengths and gaps, and provides recommended remediation priorities.

The 56 WCAG 2.2 AA Criteria

WCAG 2.2 Level AA includes 56 success criteria across four principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust). Of these:

For manual-only criteria, the VPAT marks them as "Not Evaluated" with a note explaining that automated testing cannot assess this criterion and manual review is recommended.

Why Always DRAFT

Every AllyProof-generated VPAT is prominently labeled DRAFT — Automated Assessment on every page. This is intentional and important:

• Automated tools cover 57-70% of WCAG criteria — the remaining 30-43% require human judgment that no scanner can provide
• FTC precedent — The FTC fined accessiBe $1M in 2024 for misrepresenting automated tools as providing full compliance. AllyProof avoids any claim of complete conformance.
• Legal liability— A VPAT claiming "Supports" for criteria that were never manually tested could expose the vendor to procurement fraud claims
• Professional standard — ITI recommends VPATs be prepared by accessibility professionals. The DRAFT label sets the correct expectation that an expert should review and finalize the document.

The DRAFT VPAT gives agencies an 80% head start. An accessibility consultant can review the automated findings, manually test the remaining criteria, and upgrade the document to a final VPAT in a fraction of the time it would take to start from scratch.

Download Formats

VPATs can be downloaded in multiple formats:

Generating a VPAT

1. Navigate to the site detail page for the site you want a VPAT for
2. Click Reports in the site navigation
3. Select Generate VPAT
4. Choose the edition (WCAG, 508, EU, or International)
5. Optionally provide product name, version, and contact information
6. Click Generate — the process takes 15-30 seconds
7. Download in your preferred format

VPATs are generated from the most recent completed scan. Run a fresh scan before generating if your site has changed since the last scan.