A solicitation for anything people will use, whether software, a website, documents, training or a service that produces content, needs three elements. The standard: name the conformance level, typically the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at level AA and the State of Minnesota accessibility standard, and say it applies to every user-facing function including administrative and reporting screens, not only the public ones. The evidence: require an accessibility conformance report, a description of the vendor’s own testing including testing with assistive technology, and access to a working version of the product for the agency’s own test before award. The remedy: the contract must state that conformance is a material obligation, set remediation timelines for defects found before and after award, provide for interim access at the vendor’s cost, and allow withheld payment, cure periods and termination for persistent failure. Section508.gov’s buy and sell guidance and the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative both cover these elements in detail; procurement and legal counsel adapt them to state contract rules.
Read a conformance report as an admission, not a guarantee. Vendors write their own. “Supports” means the vendor believes it does; “partially supports” means it does not; “not applicable” deserves a question. Ask what version was tested, by whom, with which assistive technology, and when. Then have the accessibility lead and, where possible, disabled staff or participants run the agency’s real tasks on the real product. Ten minutes with a keyboard finds what a forty-page report conceals.
Finally, make accessibility count in the score. If it carries a small weight, the highest-scoring proposal can be the least accessible, and the evaluation team will feel bound to recommend it. Set a minimum accessibility threshold below which a proposal is not considered, and weight verified accessibility heavily enough that it can decide between otherwise close bids.
