"Supports" vs "Partially Supports" vs "Does Not Support"
The four conformance values a VPAT permits, what each actually tells you, and why Partially Supports is the one to read carefully.
VPAT 2.5 permits exactly four conformance values. They look self-explanatory and they are not, because three of the four carry meaning that depends entirely on the remarks written beside them.
The four values
Supports — the product meets the criterion.
Partially Supports — some functionality does not meet the criterion.
Does Not Support — the product does not meet the criterion.
Not Applicable — the criterion is not relevant to this product.
Some reports also use "Not Evaluated". That is not one of the four. It means nobody checked, and it should be read as an absence of information rather than as a qualified pass.
Why "Partially Supports" is the interesting one
It is the most-used value in the format and the least informative, because it spans an enormous range.
Consider two products, both marked Partially Supports on 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum):
- One has a single decorative caption at 4.3:1 instead of 4.5:1 on a page most users never visit.
- The other renders its primary action button in a colour that fails contrast throughout the application.
Identical value. Wildly different products. The only thing that separates them is what the vendor wrote in the remarks — which is why the remarks column is the report and the conformance column is an index to it.
When you see Partially Supports with an empty remarks field, the vendor has told you something fails and declined to say what. That is a question to ask, not a row to tick.
Why "Supports" deserves a second look too
A bare "Supports" with nothing beside it is not evidence. It may well be true — but the document gives you no way to distinguish a product that was tested thoroughly from one where somebody filled a column down.
A useful heuristic: read only the remarks column, ignoring the values entirely. A report where the remarks describe mechanisms — "headings are marked up with h1–h6", "form errors are announced via aria-live" — was written by someone who looked at the product. A report where the remarks are blank, or restate the criterion back at you, was not.
Why "Not Applicable" needs a justification
"Not Applicable" is legitimate and common. A product with no video genuinely cannot fail the captions criteria.
But VPAT requires a reason. "Not Applicable" on 1.2.2 Captions with the note "the product contains no pre-recorded audio or video content" is complete. "Not Applicable" with a blank field, on a product you know includes a video tutorial library, is a gap wearing a dismissal.
What the levels do to all of this
Every criterion carries a WCAG conformance level, and it changes the weight entirely.
Level A is the floor. A single Does Not Support at Level A means the product has not met the minimum, however good the rest of the report looks. This is why counting is misleading: "supports 49 of 50" is a fine-sounding number that can conceal a product nobody can operate by keyboard.
Level AA is the target virtually every public-sector procurement names, and what ADA Title II references for state and local government web content. Gaps here are normal and negotiable — they should come with a remediation commitment and a date.
A reading order that works
- Does anything fail at Level A? That is the headline.
- How many criteria are not addressed at all? Count the rows against 50 for WCAG 2.1 AA, 55 for 2.2 AA.
- How many claims have empty remarks?
- How many Not Applicable rows carry no justification?
- Only then, the totals.
Steps two through four are where the real signal is, and all three are about absence — which is exactly why they get missed.
If you are a vendor: the fastest way to improve a report is to write the remarks properly. Most of what gets challenged in procurement is not a failing criterion; it is a claim nobody explained.
GOVvpat reads conformance reports the way a procurement reviewer does. Check a report or request a quote.