WCAG 2.2 Demo SuiteVPAT / ACR skeleton
A VPAT is the blank template. Once you fill it in it becomes an ACR — an Accessibility Conformance Report. It is a procurement document: its audience is somebody deciding whether to buy your product.
Do not confuse its language with WCAG's
A VPAT uses four conformance levels — Supports, Partially Supports, Does Not Support and Not Applicable. "Partially Supports" exists so a procurement reader can see nuance. It is not a WCAG category: in WCAG a criterion either is or is not met on a given page. Never let VPAT wording leak into a conformance claim.
Structure of an ACR
- Product information — name, version, date, contact, and the report's own version.
- Report date and evaluation methods — how the findings were produced, and by whom. State whether the evaluation was internal or independent.
- Applicable standards — which of WCAG 2.x, Section 508 and EN 301 549 the report covers.
- Terms — the four conformance levels, reproduced so the reader knows what they mean.
- Tables 1–3: WCAG Level A, Level AA, and (if claimed) Level AAA — one row per criterion.
- Chapters 3–7 — the additional EN 301 549 or Section 508 clauses that are not WCAG criteria: hardware, software, documentation, support services.
- Legal disclaimer.
What a row looks like
| Criteria | Conformance level | Remarks and explanations |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A) | Partially Supports | Decorative images are correctly marked. Three product images in the catalogue carry generic alt text ("image"). Fix scheduled for release 4.2. |
| 1.2.1 Audio-only and Video-only (Level A) | Not Applicable | The product contains no audio-only or video-only content. |
| 2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap (Level A) | Does Not Support | The password reset dialog traps keyboard focus; Escape does not close it and no close control is present. Users must close the browser tab. Fix in progress. |
Writing a defensible ACR
- Every "Partially Supports" needs a remark saying what fails. A bare "Partially Supports" tells a buyer nothing and reads as evasion.
- Every "Not Applicable" needs a reason. "No video content in the product", not a blank cell.
- Do not claim "Supports" for something you did not test. ACRs are relied on in purchasing decisions and are increasingly the subject of legal action when wrong.
- Say who evaluated it. A self-assessment and an independent audit carry very different weight, and hiding which one it was is what destroys trust in the document.
- Date it and version it. An ACR describes one release at one moment.
Where to get the real template
Use the current official template from the Information Technology Industry Council rather than a copy from a blog post — the WCAG 2.2 edition is the one you want, and the editions differ. This page is a teaching outline of the structure, not a substitute for it.
Which document do you need?
Evaluation report — for the team that will fix it. Accessibility statement — published on the site, for its users, saying what is accessible and how to report a problem. ACR — for procurement. Three audiences, three documents. Writing one and using it for all three fails all three.