An assessment of the Product Y Website, for compliance with Section 508 Federal Standards.

The assessment will need to show where the website currently complies with the standards, and areas which need improvement.

The consultant must also demonstrate to our design team how the website will be used with technologies and strategies commonly used by people with disabilities.

Furthermore, the consultant must be able to explain how any problems in use of these technologies and strategies can be overcome in changes to our coding practices.

The consultant will provide a completed Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) for the Product Y website.

The template must address all sections of the VPAT, i.e.:

• Web technology-specific technical requirements;
• functional performance criteria; and
• Information/Documentation/Support.

The consultant will provide a supplementary report which shows, for each non-compliant item on the VPAT, an analysis of the underlying code and suggested solutions which meet coding practices specified by the W3C (all 3 priority levels).

The consultant must also present and Discuss solutions with the Company X web design team. The presentation must also include use of the Product Y website with

(a) JAWS screen reader;

(b) screen magnification tools;

(c) mouse-only use;

(d) keyboard-only use;

(e) no or reduced audio; and

(f) other technologies likely to be used by the audience of the website.

The use of publicly available automated tools for assessment must also be presented.

This is a one-off consulting contract which must be completed by the end of October.

The consultant will be required to work with web developers based at our headquarters, and will be required to travel to present a final report to the web and management teams at the end of the contract.

• Familiarity with VPATs and Section 508 requirements for websites
• Automated web accessibility tools
• Understanding of accessible website programming (in HTML, JAVA, and XML)
• Familiarity with W3C web accessibility guidelines
• Use of websites with technologies used by people with disabilities (e.g. JAWS screen reader, screen magnification tools)