[a11y support] PDF Audit - VA Claims - Supporting Forms: Form 21-0966

[sara-amanda]

[!NOTE] An audit is to be performed on the following VA Claims - Supporting Form: Form 21-0966 Submit an intent to file

PDF Audit Process

This process is thorough and designed to check that all aspects of document accessibility and confirm compliance with a matching accessibility report.

[!TIP] CAIA is currently drafting documentation relating to: How to create an accessible PDF Review this GitHub page, to learn more about PDF auditing, remediation and tools.

Testing Tool

To ensure that the PDF is accessible, it will need to be tested with a special tool that tests the PDF document for various accessibility standards, such as Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 AA.

Preferred CAIA Testing Tool

CommonLook PDF Validator, also known as Allyant, is the CAIA team's testing tool of choice. It's a free plugin for Adobe Acrobat Pro or DC that tests and verifies PDF documents.

Tool Used in this PDF Audit

• [ ] CommonLook PDF Validator (Allyant)
• [x] Adobe Acrobat DC
• [ ] axesPDF
• [ ] AccessibilityNow® Remediate
• [x] Manual Testing
• [ ] Other

PDF Audit Areas

• [x] Tag Tree
• [ ] Artifact Images
• [ ] Verify alt text in images
• [x] Heading styles
• [x] Verify reading order
• [x] Verify correct tag usage
• [ ] Look for color issues
• [x] Review overall tag usage
• [x] Review table tags
• [x] Review form tags
• [x] Review link tags
• [x] Review for descriptive links
• [ ] Review artifact tags
• [x] Review header/footer tags

PDF Remediation Needed

• [ ] Set the tabbing order to follow the document structure
• [ ] Add the document tag
• [ ] Add bookmarks
• [ ] Clean up empty tags
• [ ] Add Metadata Information (adding the checkbox for 508, WCAG, PDF/UA or HHS)
• [x] #81827
• [x] #81828
• [ ] Fix tagging errors in tables
• [ ] Fix tagging errors in forms
• [x] #81836
• [ ] Fix tagging errors in artifact tags

PDF Accessibility Reporting

• [ ] Run CommonLook Verification on structural compliance
• [ ] Run CommonLook Verification on accessibility compliance
• [ ] Generate and save the CommonLook Accessibility Report according to the chosen standard (WCAG2.1AA, PDF/UA/HHS/508)

[sara-amanda]

Ticket Status Update

• Moving this ticket to Validate based on conversation today with @EvanAtCoforma.
• This ticket will ultimately be dependent on the following ticket comment.

cc: @SarahKay8 @coforma-terry

[sara-amanda]

PDF Audit Next Steps

[!IMPORTANT]

• Audit Status: Completed and provided to OCTO.
• Tickets: Only the items that are checked with tickets are the remediation needs.
• Recommendation: "Unfortunately, these forms are currently inaccessible per our testing, so we believe it is imperative that we or another PDF specialist get access to these forms to fix them."
• PDF Remediation Status: Work not requested at this time.

Ticket Update

Closing this ticket, per Martha via Slack on June 3, 2024.

• VA is working through bugs with Adobe.
• Our offer to remediate these forms is not needed at this time.
• PDF audit efforts to be entered in CAIA Closed Ticket Tracking - verified with @EvanAtCoforma (@NaomiPMC and @strelichl )