Thanks for requesting a copy of our portfolio. We are very proud of the work we do for our fantastic clients and enjoy the process along the way, and we think it shows. We would love to hear your comments too.
Shortly after submitting the details to the right, you will recieve an email with a link to our portfolio.
Thanks again & enjoy!
This week I completed a fairly new online training course from AbilityNet , BCS and the Equality and Human Rights Commission entitled Web Accessibility Essentials. As a company we are producing more and more sites that are required to meet 1WCAG 2.01 A and AA standards so when this course came across our radar at Totally we were understandably eager to get stuck in.
The online course comprises a 35 minute interactive training experience, including a mock exam, and a 45 minute test immediately after. A mark of at least 77% will earn you a pass certificate, over 90% and you are awarded a merit and over 97% will yield a pass with distinction. The course claims to be the only such training programme in existence, certificated and backed by industry leading accessibility experts. The bundle we purchased, which includes the course material and an exam, cost a little under £60 per ‘seat’ with test-only costs of £30 including VAT. The course material proved invaluable despite a good amount of real world website accessibility experience, so I would highly recommend the bundle deal.
Having worked through the WCAG 2.0 guidelines a couple of times in the past I assumed it wouldn’t be too difficult to take the test without the accompanying interactive material. I’m very pleased I didn’t attempt that as I almost certainly would have failed as a result. As previously mentioned, I recommend everyone goes through the Flash based presentation thoroughly before taking the test. It turns out the WCAG is only part of the story, and does not in-fact guarantee adherence to the Equality Act 2010 which is something all website operators should be aware of and in compliance with. The exam is focused on a combination of the WCAG, the Equality Act (which makes no reference to the guidelines), the BS8878 code of practice and general questions regarding accessible design and development.
The point being made here is that accessible websites are not simply the product of consuming and regurgitating the W3C’s guidelines in isolation. To produce a site that everyone can enjoy equally well requires understanding of the different issues people with disabilities could face, a willingness to address any inadequacies on your part and - often most importantly - accepting that this process could increase the cost and time it takes to produce a new website. That said, retrofitting an old inaccessible site with modern coding practices and/or alternative content would almost certainly cost a great deal more. Why do either? Websites that don’t function equally well for people with disabilities through poor design, code or content are breaking the law, and there is plentiful help available from public and private sources to enable users to take legal action against site operators on this basis. I always knew good accessibility was best practice, I did not know it was a codified matter of law - I wonder how widely know that fact is?
accessible websites are not simply the product of consuming and regurgitating the W3C’s guidelines in isolation.
The course also seeks to impress upon participants that accessible sites are not just good for people with disabilities. These same standards also decrease payload size, and therefore page load times (increasingly important with mobile users). They make sites generally more desirable to other non-disabled groups such as elderly people and young children. They can look great, be feature rich and more user friendly across the board.
The course gives examples of real world return on investment achieved as a result of re-engineering older sites to meet new standards. The cost saving apparently coming from a large reduction in the time required to maintain these new streamlined products. A lot of emphasis is given to the POUR principle which is an acronym for Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust. These four areas cover the different challenges users could face and how site developers can tackle them with thorough testing and a constant eye on accessibility throughout the development cycle. As an Agile methodology enthusiast I was interested to hear about their guidelines for integrating best practice into an iterative development process.
The course material did require the full 35 minutes but I finished the test in a little under 15 minutes. Almost every question could be answered after going through the preceding material, but I would recommend additionally reading the BS8878 guide and an introduction to the Equality Act 2010. I passed with a meritorious 90%, falling short on the 3 questions not explicitly covered in the material. I found the whole experience rewarding and worthwhile and I feel that I will benefit from it professionally too, so it was an all-round success for me. It’s worth mentioning that all of this material, with the exception of a nice certificate, is freely available for anyone willing to learn and implement. So don’t think that paying for this course is a requirement for integrating best accessibility practice into your website, just go ahead and do it!
1 WCAG 2.0 is the Web Content Accessibility Guideline produced by the W3C.