I’m pleased to post about a little project that I have been helping with. The Usability Professionals’ Association is partnering with Knowbility, a non-profit US-based group that advocates for accessible technologies, to offer a “certificate” in web accessibility evaluation for user experience professionals.
Knowbility offers twice-per-year training in designing, building and evaluating web sites for accessibility. This year, Knowbility and UPA arrived at an agreement to essentially co-brand part of the training. UPA members (and non-members, for that matter) have the option to attend Knowbility’s Access U (at very reasonable prices) and request a UPA accessibility evaluation certificate for only an extra 150.00 USD. The course content for the accessibility evaluation certificate is unique to the certificate track, so it’s more than just “pay 150 for a piece of paper.”
Whitney Quesenbery (former UPA President) and Sharron Rush of Knowbility have been instrumental in getting this partnership off the ground and ensuring that the certificate traininig is extremely high quality. The advisory board is a “who’s who” of accessibility experts (I’ll post a link to the advisory board a bit later, just can’t find it now).
As a UPA board member – and current Director of Training – I’m very hopeful that this partnership will offer UPA members (and user experience practitioners as a whole) with high quality, low cost training opportunities.
I’ll be there this year taking the courses.
Here’s a blockquote blurb from Knowbility:
John Slatin Access U – May 11-13 2009
Join Knowbility at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas
Monday May 11th and Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
(with post-conference sessions on May 13th)General Conference Registration is open. Class registration will open soon.
If you believe that the web should empower ALL people, if you need information about how to meet state and federal accessibility mandates, if you are a commercial web developer who wants to understand emerging best business practices of accessibility for the web, John Slatin Access U is the place to be in May.
What’s new at John Slatin Access U in 2009?
In addition to two-days of the best hands-on accessibility classes, you will hear keynote presentations, attend a captioned and audio described movie, participate in communities of practice sessions where you can share experiences, and meet hundreds of others who share your passion for accessible IT. From absolute beginners to advanced practitioners you can customize your learning to meet your specific needs. Some new options in 2009 include:
- Usability Track with Certificate
Created for usability professionals who know how to test for usability and want to learn to test for accessibility. We are pleased to offer a set of classes to build the skills and knowledge you need to help your clients meet mandates and to help you conduct usability tests that include people with disabilities. Specific Courses with several electives are delivered within the two day basic conference period and an additional certificate fee applies.
- Molly Holzschlag Track – HTML/CSS/Accessible Design Intensive
Spend three days with Molly Holzschlag learning HTML/XHTML and CSS for accessibility, SEO, and superior web site performance. If you have solid experience in CSS and need only the more advanced techniques, sign on for Day 3 as a post-conference only.
- Post Conferences:
Derek Featherstone: Breaking New Ground: Designing for Accessibility in Emerging Technologies
Molly Holzschlag: Advanced CSS techniques
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