Commissioning services - Digital Accessibility

Consider accessibility in procurement and contracting

Accessibility must be considered when designing the website or app and drawing up the specifications, as well as at all stages of the award process. This helps to avoid costly corrections later on.

On the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection (BMSGPK), an interministerial working group has developed guidelines for considering the accessibility of information and communication technology products and services in procurement and contracting. The result is now available as a guideline (PDF) (external link, content in German) and as practical tools in the form of annexes (see below: "Text modules for procurement and contracting").

The guideline focuses on ensuring accessibility to content across various information and communication technology contexts:

Web content
Documents
Web-based applications and apps
Non-web-based software

It also describes minimum requirements for:

Sign language translations/sign language translation videos
Sign language interpreting services for live events and streaming
Translation of texts into simple language

Text modules for procurement and contracting

There are different accessibility requirements depending on the type of product a public-sector institution wants to procure. Public-sector institutions can find the relevant annexes here.

Testing accessibility before acceptance

You can specify in advance that contractors must carry out a self-assessment to prove compliance with accessibility requirements and submit the results along with the finished product. All criteria listed in the relevant overview must be checked as part of the self-assessment.

You can also get an overview of the accessibility status of web content or documents yourself. Here you can find tips for an accessibility check of web content (this content is only available in German) and for testing documents (this content is only available in German).

Preparing the accessibility statement

Every website or app must provide an accessibility statement at the time of publication. You can include the preparation of such a statement in the contract. Here you can find information on the accessibility statement, such as how to structure it and where to publish it.