5-3.2 General Requirements

Accessibility is accomplished by purchasing or developing telecommunications products that accommodate the widest range of users, including those with disabilities. Listed below are some general requirements that will help the Postal Service ensure that its telecommunications products continue to be accessible:

• The Postal Service will develop and procure telecommunications products that take advantage of built–in accessibility features when those features are available to both end users and product developers.
• The Postal Service will procure or develop telecommunications products that maximize the capabilities of the accessibility features installed and activated by a user (e.g., native hardware, as well as installed assistive technology). Postal Service telecommunications products procurement personnel and developers should do the following:
• Buy or build products that support industry and regulatory telecommunications standards. Accessibility features are often integrated with these standards to ensure accessibility in telecommunications usage (including input, compression, transmission, storage, and output).
• Use standard hardware and software controls instead of custom controls. Standard controls often already support product accessibility features. Using them may eliminate the need for additional configuration or programming to provide explicit accessibility support, unless the behavior of the standard control has been enhanced.
• Buy or build products that support a variety of input and output methods.
• Buy or build products that can detect the assistive technology in use and configure the telecommunication products automatically. For example, IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition) systems might detect the presence of TTY signals and automatically route calls to the appropriate system or subsystem.