Up to now web accessibility has been the poor little Cinderella of technology, dressed in rags, struggling, cleaning up other people's messes and getting not an ounce of thanks or glory. Worthy, honest, dutiful, altruistic—but darn near invisible in the shadows with her broom and spanners.
That was until last Thursday, when the princes of Silicon Valley declared their love en masse. Little Accessabella-Cinderella is trying on a glass slipper and coronet as we speak.
The big boys of Silicon Valley have united in a mission to turn on a firehose of accessibility education and promotion. Their first three objectives are to introduce accessibility training into regular university courses, to foster research, and to build online training tools.
So, do you want a job with Adobe, Facebook, Microsoft, Dropbox, Yahoo or LinkedIn? Or perhaps you want your own staff to meet the standards they now embrace with such fervour? Best get yourself up to speed with accessibility knowledge quick smart.
We can help you immediately with their fourth objective, so don't be alarmed by this one:
Industry Initiatives: To develop standardized job descriptions that include preference for accessibility knowledge, to increase accessibility focus within recruitment activities and to extend the post-secondary foundation through “on the job training” in product and service development.
In other words, if you want a job or a career in web design, programming, app development, you'd better have a credible qualification in web accessibility.
No need to wait for a university course! Contented already has the perfect CPD qualification for people in a hurry. You'll look long and hard before finding anything like it. It's the best start you can give yourself in the suddenly sexy field of web accessibility.
Grab yourself a Diploma in Accessible Content and jump the job queue.
Teaching Accessibility: read all about it
Image from Cinderella, or, The little glass slipper (1908), no known copyright restrictions
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