A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) is a table designed to help U.S. Federal officials make preliminary assessments of accessibility compliance for products offered to the government for sale. A VPAT lists the criteria for compliance with accessibility requirements for various types of products and provides columns where you can indicate and comment on how your product meets them.
VPATs are available for software applications and operating systems, Web-based Internet information and applications, and other types of products. Even if you do not need to fill out a VPAT, reviewing the template for your type of product can give you a clearer understanding of the requirements of Section 508 for software and Web applications.
To view the various VPATs, see the Information Technology Industry Council Web site.
To see samples of completed VPATs for IT products, see the Sybase accessibility site.
