Digital accessibility remains a fragmented process for many organizations. Often, accessibility is addressed only after content has already been created or assets developed. This after-the-fact approach is inefficient both in terms of cost and time, particularly for companies who are reliant on third-party providers for accessibility services.
As a result, more private and public entities are trending towards training to develop in-house digital accessibility proficiency and, eventually, expertise. When developers, designers, and content editors add accessibility as an additional skill set, it immediately pays dividends because that means less accessibility issues result from new content and assets.
Digital accessibility means making digital assets accessible to individuals with disabilities. This includes web assets, such as websites, web applications, and social media, but it extends beyond the web to cover documents, native mobile apps, software, and more.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are technical standards for accessibility that, while designed for the web, provide principles that apply to all forms of digital content. This is why the basis for digital accessibility training is almost always rooted in WCAG success criteria.
The Importance of Understanding Success Criteria
WCAG success criteria are requirements for conformance with the technical standards. While it’s ideal for teams to learn all success criteria necessary for level AA conformance, focusing on the success criteria relevant to specific roles within the organization means employees will be trained faster and be able to immediately improve accessibility in their daily activities.
Roles can be grouped into three categories:
- Developers: Responsible for functionality and coding aspects.
- Designers: Focus on the visual aspects, including colors and styles.
- Content Editors: Manage text, images, videos, audio, and documents.
By concentrating on the success criteria that pertain directly to their role, team members can shorten the training window and begin immediately putting the education into practice.
Accessibility Resources
To support teams in their accessibility efforts, our WCAG Course includes several supplemental resources that will help your organization quickly implement accessibility into processes.
- Spreadsheets and Checklists: These can be used to associate success criteria with specific roles, making it easier for team members to focus on their responsibilities.
- Accessibility Workflows: Role-specific workflows incorporate success criteria into everyday tasks, ensuring accessibility considerations are always top of mind.
- Grouped Success Criteria: Success criteria can also be organized into related categories, allowing teams to address multiple related issues simultaneously. We call this WCAG in chunks.
Legal Compliance
Another great advantage to accessibility training is it helps with material compliance as virtually every digital accessibility law is tied to or rooted in WCAG:
- ADA Title II
- Section 504 (HHS update)
- European Accessibility Act (EAA)
- Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)
- Colorado HB21-1110
WCAG Course: Our Accessibility Training Program
For companies looking to build digital accessibility knowledge and expertise internally, we can’t recommend our WCAG Course enough. This course covers all versions of WCAG (2.0, 2.1, and 2.2) and is structured to ensure efficient and effective learning. The course also includes:
- Lean, focused lessons designed to get to the point without unnecessary detail.
- Resources like a master Excel spreadsheet that categorizes success criteria by WCAG version.
- Workflows for developers, designers, and content editors.
- Documents grouping related success criteria to facilitate comprehensive understanding.
Also, the WCAG Course is a one-time purchase, meaning your team gets lifetime access to the materials and any future updates. This ensures that organizations can continually refer back to the course and keep up-to-date with changes in accessibility standards.
Your purchaser will also be able to assign a course license to individual employees. This is a really nice perk because each individual employee can work through the course at their own pace and have direct access to downloads.
Learn more about our WCAG Course.