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Re: IAAP Certification Update

for

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Sep 12, 2015 3:37PM

Dave,

You asked "What would be a good first few steps to prepping for the
impending certification when it gets finalized?"

That's an excellent question. Here is the list of topics that we anticipate
will be on the Associate level exam (subject to a final review):

- Disabilities
- Theoretical Models of Disability
- Types of Disabilities, Challenges, and Assistive Technologies
- Disability Demographics
- Disability Etiquette
- Accessibility and Universal Design
- Individual Accommodations versus Inclusive Design
- Benefits of Accessibility
- Accessibility Principles (WCAG 2.0) (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/)
- The Principles of Universal Design 2.0 (
http://www.ncsu.edu/ncsu/design/cud/about_ud/udprinciplestext.htm)
- Universal Design for Learning (UDL) (
http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines)
- Usability and User Experience (UX)
- Standards, Laws, and Management Strategies
- International Conventions and Treaties (The Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities, The
Marrakesh Treaty (WIPO))
- Accessibility Standards and Regulations
- National and Regional Laws
- Systematic Organizational Governance and Management

There is more than one place that you can find tutorials, classes, or
workshops on all of these topics. I am most familiar with the resources
that I have created (or collaborated on) on the Deque University web site:
https://dequeuniversity.com/courses/ You could start with the course "Web
Accessibility Fundamentals," which also includes a section on Universal
Design in the Physical World, to supplement all the other information about
Universal Design for the Web.

And there are other similar resources on the web as well, some free, some
with paid subscriptions. I'll let others chime in if they want to add their
own resources.

Aside from pre-packaged curricula, you can use the outline above as a study
guide to do some of your own research. As soon as the Exam Blueprint is
validated, the IAAP will publish a complete Body of Knowledge document with
much more detail that can be used as a complete study guide.

Note that the Associate level credential is not just about web
accessibility. It is about the broad concepts of accessibility in both
virtual and physical spaces. One of the goals of the credential is to
encourage people to think across domains, because sometimes the best
solutions to accessibility problems in one domain are actually in another
domain.






Paul Bohman, PhD
Director of Training, Deque Systems, Inc
703-225-0380, ext.121
https://DequeUniversity.com


On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 8:32 PM, Dave Bahr < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Ok, sorry Paul, my bad for not reading that description properly. I see
> what you mean now about being a tester.
>
> Um, not sure what to say to the last post in this thread because I'm not
> on the direct inside of all the organizations. So...for someone who is a
> newby at all of this. What would be a good first few steps to prepping for
> the impending certification when it gets finalized? I have no idea what I'm
> doing, and I'll freely admit that, because if I didn't, I'd be lying to
> myself. In the forum post I put out, someone wrote that they know a lot of
> people who are passionate about accessibility by providing opinions about
> whether the software is accessible but not necessarily providing
> constructive feedback with snippets of code or something to try to help the
> devs out. Or, at least, that's how I read it, I could again have
> interpreted that wrong. I fear that I may be one of those people. I can
> tell you when something isn't accessible for me as a user, but I couldn't
> necessarily tell you the exact coding on how to fix it. For example, I
> could tell you that if the website you were showing me didn't have headings
> where there could be headings, then you should put headings there so it's
> easier to read. But I couldn't tell you what style sheet to use and the
> exact html coding to do it.
> That's a basic example, but I hope it illustrates where I'm coming from. I
> have extensive knowledge about accessibility on desktop and iphone, not
> android, don't have the money for one right now. I guess I'm feeling
> overwhelmed right now as to what a good place to start is. I was advised to
> concentrate on mobile access and, while I completely understand why that's
> so important, by more knowledgable areas are in desktop and screen reader
> access since that's what I deal with 98 percent of the time. So, yes, I'd
> love to be certified, is there a book I can start with or something?
>
>
>