Procurement Strategies

The procurement process offers an opportunity to review potential ICT products and services for accessibility prior to purchase. Integrating accessibility into the procurement process should not require a complete overhaul of how procurement is managed at the college. Rather, documenting accessibility functionality can often be inserted as an additional checkpoint during the overall process.

Steps to include in procurement:

• Define your functional business requirements and evaluate which products meet those requirements.
• For those products that meet the functional business requirements, inform the vendor(s) of the need for accessibility documentation. For large-scale web applications, consider requesting documentation from a third-party evaluation company.
• Verify a vendor's claims by asking questions or requesting a demonstration of the product highlighting accessibility features or use with assistive technologies.
• Include accessibility language and requirements as part of the contract process.