We are officially certified in Web Accessibility

When Mpowering Solutions was founded, one of our commitments has been to making the digital world accessible and inclusive. If you have followed us throughout our journey, you will have seen us talk about WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), the importance of sufficient colour contrast, and bridging the accessibility gap in the digital world.

We have now taken this commitment one step further and gotten ourselves certified, so we can proudly say we are officially trained on the topic of web and digital accessibility. This demonstrates our genuine passion for the topic, and true desire to make our digital world a more inclusive and accessible place.

Read on to find out more about our journey to achieving this certification, and what this means for you if you are looking for a web designer.

The Course

The course is WAI0.1x: Introduction to Web Accessibility, and is offered by W3Cx, an online learning initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. It is an online course where learn at your own pace, making it convenient to fit around our work and personal schedules. It comprises of 5 modules:

1. What is Accessibility?

2. People and Digital Technology

3. Business Cases and Benefits

4. Principles, Standards and Checks

5. Getting Started with Accessibility in your Organisation

The modules are a mixture of written content and video demonstrations, and knowledge checks were placed after each main section to check the understanding of the learner. Each module had an assessment that was graded, and you must get at least 70% to pass and graduate from the course. The entire course is suitable for technical and non-technical learners, as they use language that is easy to understand, and explain concepts such as WCAG and even coding in simple terms. The course is about accessibility, after all!

The course is free, but if you want to obtain a Verified Certificate at the end, it costs US$99. W3Cx are very upfront about this, so there is no surprise at the end should you want a certificate to prove your course completion.

The Institution

The course is run by W3Cx, an online learning initiative by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). W3C is the official international standards organisation for the World Wide Web. They are responsible for publishing official guidelines for different topics relating to the World Wide Web, including standards such as the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), which is the cornerstone of web accessibility. By obtaining a certification from W3Cx, this demonstrates that our knowledge of web and digital accessibility is certified by the founders of WCAG themselves.

Our Experience

Since we were already advocates of digital accessibility and inclusivity, we were already familiar with topics that were covered in the course such as WCAG. However, the course was still very education and insightful for a multitude of reasons.

Firstly, we were introduced to other standards of web accessibility. For instance, we were always aware of WCAG, but we didn't know about the other standards that exist: the ATAG (Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines) and UAAG (User Agent Accessibility Guidelines). We also learnt about the importance of authoring tools (such as software like Microsoft Word) to ensure users with disabilities and impairments can create content to begin with, and how to make content beyond websites accessible.

Our favourite part of the course was the videos of various users with a range of impairments and disabilities. We always knew about the different technologies and tools that users with disabilities use to surf the Internet, but we had never seen them in action. To see the Braille reader in action, or the sip-and-puff switches in use, has been very interesting and was an incredibly effective way to establish the importance of web accessibility that heaps of text could never adequately convey.

We also love how accessible (pun semi-intended?!) this course is to non-technical learners. It is clear that W3Cx are placing emphasis on teaching people why accessibility is important (i.e. the concept itself), and not burdening the course with technical details or trying to make web accessibility appear like a complicated matter of compliance. The language and terminology used is incredibly simple and easy to understand, and throughout the course, instructors in videos pepper their teachings with reassurances that learners are doing well.

We were also very relieved that W3Cx said exactly what we had believed about digital accessibility and web content in general: that the most important thing to consider are people! Sometimes, digital and tech experts get so caught up in the technical details, we use acronyms and terms that are not familiar to those who are not digitally savvy, resulting in a gap of knowledge between "them" and "us". The course constantly reminds learners that accessibility is about putting people first, and prioritising the experience for the end user. By humanising the ultimate aim of accessibility and not reducing it to a checklist of regulations, it makes the concept of web accessibility very easy to grasp.

One thing to note is that the course includes discussion topics where you are encouraged to speak to fellow coursemates on discussion boards. This feature was not actually functional (at least for us), so we did not participate in any discussions. However, these activities were always prefaced with instructions and talking points, so they gave great food for thought to consider real-life examples and dilemmas.

Our Certification

In order to pass the course, you have to complete a series of graded assessments, which comprise of questions and answers, some of which have multiple correct answers so you have to pick all the relevant statements. The pass mark is 70%; we're pleased to announce we got 91%! A few multiple answer questions threw us where didn't select all the correct statements, but overall we are very happy with our assessment grade.

Our Verified Certificate can be viewed here; otherwise, please get in touch should you require proof.

How this helps YOU

If you are looking for ways to ensure your business is compliant with the latest web accessibility guidelines, or you want to understand how to improve your business' web content to become more accessible and inclusive, we are here to help. We have always been advocates about web accessibility, and now we can say we are certified on this topic. Get in touch now to see how we can help you website be more inclusive and accessible to all!