The Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) and Knowbility have teamed up to create a curriculum and training program designed to enhance usability practitioners’ knowledge and understanding of accessibility standards and what constitutes an accessible product. The first offering will be at Access U in Austin, Texas, on May 11-12, 2009.

The Web Accessibility Evaluation Certificate program is designed as a way for usability professionals to:

• Expand their “toolkit” of professional practice to include accessibility.
• Understand the standards, guidelines, and US and international laws that apply to accessible information technology.
• Learn a set of tools and benchmarks to gauge success in the implementation of accessible design goals from a user perspective.
• Gain skills needed to accurately assess and report on web application compliance to standards and best practices in accessible web design.
• And prove to their companies that they have gotten the training they need to do all this.

More information, check out UPA Voice February 2009 article about the Web Accessibility Evaluation Certificate program or the 2009 Access U curriculum and course descriptions.

The Web Accessibility Evaluation Certificate program advisory board includes:

• Leaders
  • Whitney Quesenbery and Paul Sherman (UPA past-presidents)
  • Sharron Rush (Knowbility)
• Members
  • Cindy Lu (UPA Member)
  • Karen Mardahl (STC AccessAbility SIG)
  • Amanda Nance (UPA Board of Directors)
  • Mike Paciello (The Paciello Group)
  • Ginny Redish (Redish & Associates)
  • Sarah Swierenga (MSU Usabilty and Accessibilty Center, UPA representative to TEITAC)
  • Gregg Vanderheiden (The Trace Center)
  • Kate Walser (CX Insights and member of TEITAC).