At BT we are committed to ensuring the products and services we procure meet the needs of all users, customers, and colleagues, including those with disabilities.

It’s vital that all our suppliers understand accessibility and disability and are confident in making their products accessible and making adjustments for disabled users who may need them.

We are Disability Confident Leaders and have signed the Business Disability Forum’s Accessibility Technology Charter. This is our public commitment to ensuring everything we procure is accessible and we want our suppliers to support us in this ambition.

Digital Accessibility Info for Vendors

At EE, BT and Plusnet we want everyone to be able to access and interact with our websites and apps.

We work towards increasing the accessibility and usability of all our online communications by complying with level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines latest published version (WCAG) as a minimum.

WCAG is the international standard that aims to make digital content accessible to everyone, regardless of any differences such as disabilities, technological access, language and geographic location.

The requirements

We require our vendors to provide products that meet compliance at level AA of WCAG latest version. Such compliance must be within the product itself and not through an alternative version or overlay.

We will not consider products that use overlays as compliant.

As evidence, we ask for the following documentation to be provided at earlier stages:

  • Link to their Digital Accessibility Statement.
  • A statement with Information about how they ensure that their products are compliant with WCAG AA (example, by having a team of Accessibility Specialists, a process that embeds Accessibility from start or audits carried out by consultants).
  • A document detailing the compliance against each of the WCAG success criteria based in our BT, EE , Plusnet Accessibility Requirements Document.
    • If there are any success criteria at levels A and AA that are not met, we would expect to see information on the reasons, if there are any ways around in place and when those success criteria will be met.

If your product is shortlisted, we would require a demonstration of the product in relation to:

  • How it works with assistive technology such as screen readers, voice controls and switch controls
  • How operable it is when using the keyboard only.
  • Ease of use
  • Flexibility of use
  • Compatibility with main browsers, operating systems and devices, as well as Assistive Technology
  • Availability of a help menu or easy to access instructions that also comply with WCAG at AA level

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