Accessibility Management Platform (AMP)

Overview

As state agencies move increasingly toward the electronic delivery of services to our citizens, the state of Kansas must ensure that access to its web-based services is equitable and inclusive for everyone, including people with disabilities. To this end, it is critical that we “bake in” the evaluation of accessibility to the planning, procurement, design, and deployment of these services.

In 2000, the state established standards, applicable to all external and internal web sites and applications, including those hosted on behalf of the state, that incorporate both federal Section 508 and World Wide Web consortium guidelines adopted by industry. Over time, the standards have been reviewed and updated and training has been provided to state web developers. However, one of the issues encountered in implementation to-date has been the lack of an automated tool that could be used by state agencies to assess compliance.

The Kansas Partnership for Accessible Technology (KPAT) is charged with providing information, training and other resources to assist state organizations in ensuring the accessible design of information technology. To address the need for an automated tool, the KPAT has used grant funding from the Information Network of Kansas to purchase access to the Accessibility Management Platform (AMP), a tool that can be used to assess the accessibility of web services and content using state standards.

AMP can benefit the state in several ways. While it can assess the compliance of existing content and services, perhaps foremost, it can also be used during the design and development process to identify and correct potential accessibility issues before they are put into production.  The tool also provides a basic assessment of the complexity and potential impact of problems so, where issues are found, it can aid agencies in establishing priorities for remediation.  Finally, it provides a consistent method for identifying issues that can be used to inform training and support for web developers.

More information about how to use AMP is provided throughout this site.