ACR/VPAT Generation Overview

The Accessibility Conformance Report/Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (ACR/VPAT) generation feature allows you to create, review, manage, and publish ACRs and VPATs directly in Axe Auditor after a product audit is complete. You can perform the entire ACR/VPAT workflow within Axe Auditor without using a separate tool or manually transfer assessment data between systems. You can generate an ACR/VPAT from a completed accessibility assessment, select the accessibility standard template to use, define the scope of the assessment, and manage the review and approval process directly in the application.

ACR/VPAT generation supports the following standards:

• WCAG 2.x (Web) accessibility standards
• EN 301 549 accessibility requirements for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) products and services within the European Union

This feature supports the complete ACR/VPAT workflow, which includes creating ACRs and VPATs, reviewing, approving, publishing, and tracking document versions. After you generate an ACR/VPAT, you can download it as a Microsoft Word document for further reference.

Benefits

• Generate ACR/VPATs directly from completed Axe Auditor assessments.
• Complete the ACR/VPAT process in a single application.
• Reduce manual work and data transfer errors.
• Support both internal services teams and enterprise users.
• Manage reviews and approvals through a structured workflow.
• Track ACR/VPAT versions across assessment snapshots.
• Maintain a history of published ACR/VPAT versions.

Intended Audience

The ACR/VPAT Generation feature is intended for the following users:

• Accessibility Consultants or enterprise customers: Create ACR/VPATs for client accessibility assessments.
• Enterprise Users: Create ACR/VPATs for their own accessibility assessments.
• QA Reviewers: Review submitted ACR/VPATs and either approve them or request changes.
• Project Managers: Review, approve, and publish ACR/VPATs.

How Axe Auditor Calculates Conformance Levels

Axe Auditor pre-fills a conformance level for every criterion in the report based on the audit results for the pages and components in scope. This provides reviewers an evidence-based starting point instead of a blank form. Reviewers can override any calculated level before publishing.

The five conformance levels

Calculation Logic for WCAG Success Criteria

For each WCAG success criterion, Axe Auditor applies the following logic against the audit results in scope:

1. No issues found → Supports. If the audit logged no failures against a criterion anywhere in scope, the criterion is marked Supports.

2. Not relevant to the platform → Not Applicable. Certain criteria don't apply to certain platforms (see below) and start as Not Applicable.

3. Issues found → Partially Supports or Does Not Support. When failures exist, the tool evaluates how widespread and severe they are:

   • If a blocker-level issue was found, or failures affect the majority of the audited pages, the criterion is set to Does Not Support.
   • If failures exist but are limited to a minority of pages, the criterion is set to Partially Supports.

4. Non-interference criteria fail hard. A small set of fundamental criteria — such as No Keyboard Trap, Audio Control, Pause/Stop/Hide, and Three Flashes or Below Threshold — are treated as blockers. Any failure against these drops the criterion straight to Does Not Support, regardless of how few pages are affected, because they can prevent a user from using the product at all.

To summarize, if there are only a few issues, the result is Partially Supports. If there are many issues or major issues, the result is Does Not Support.

The conformance level is calculated based on the number of failures, their severity, and their impact on the user experience. The objective is to provide a clear and accurate representation of the product's accessibility status.

Default "Not Applicable" Criteria by Platform

Some WCAG criteria don't apply to certain technologies (for example, time-based media criteria on a product with no audio or video). Axe Auditor pre-marks these as Not Applicable based on the platform(s) selected for the report:

For reports covering more than one platform, a criterion defaults to Not Applicable only if it is Not Applicable for every platform in scope. A criterion that is N/A on one platform but relevant on another remains in the report for evaluation. Reviewers can always override these defaults.

Not Evaluated

Not Evaluated is available only for WCAG Level AAA criteria, for items a team chooses not to assess. It communicates "we did not test this," which is distinct from Not Applicable ("we tested it and it doesn't apply").

Section 508 and EN 301 549 Rows

When a report includes Section 508 or EN 301 549, those tables are populated from the same WCAG results:

• Mapped Rows (e.g., Section 508 Chapter 3, EN 301 549 Clause 4) roll up conformance from the underlying WCAG criteria:

  • If a non-interference criterion fails, or most of the mapped WCAG criteria are Does Not Support, the row rolls up to Does Not Support.
  • Otherwise, it shows Partially Supports.
  • If nothing failed, it shows Supports.

  These rows can be edited manually by a reviewer.

• Reference rows direct readers to another section (for example, "See the WCAG section") instead of showing their own result. They are included for completeness and are not edited.

Related Topics

• Create VPATs
• Create VPATs from a Test Case
• Create VPATs from the Test Run Overview Page
• Review and Generate VPAT Report