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I recently decided to take the IAAP’s WAS Certification Exam in order to become a certified Web Accessibility Specialist. In this article, I would like to share the entire process of preparing and studying for the exam.
I’ll show how I started intentionally expanding my knowledge on web accessibility, which techniques were the most productive, and what learnings are the most useful for anyone else taking the exam or just generally wanting to improve their accessibility skills.
Why the heightened focus on accessibility?
Many software developers seem somewhat resistant to accessibility. I believe this is more the result of a work process error rather than any kind of grudge – accessibility is often only considered in the testing/release phases rather than as a concurrent requirement.
The consequence is that projects don’t allocate enough time for accessibility, serious issues appear across the codebase, and solutions then require significantly more time and bigger changes.
Since June 2025, web accessibility is legally required in the EU through the EAA (European Accessibility Act), both for the public and the private sector. This is definitely an important step towards companies and individuals starting to treat accessibility more seriously, in particular as a crucial element of the development process.
The time for excuses is over, and we can start focusing on how to make digital experiences accessible, not just why they should be accessible.
Choosing the right certification and preparatory exam
Clients want, or rather, need to be compliant with accessibility legislation. For a company that builds websites and applications, this means we can’t afford to guess whether we did something right – we need to be certain.
When searching for education and certification options, IAAP (International Association of Accessibility Professionals) quickly turned out to be the logical best choice. They’re an internationally recognised organisation that tends to defining, promoting and improving accessibility.
Their WAS (Web Accessibility Specialist) certification is exactly what I was looking for: a certificate of my understanding of web accessibility.
The IAAP website provides a BOK (body of knowledge), a document covering all the topics an exam taker needs to know. Some of them were of course familiar, but there were also areas new to me.
I just missed the February deadline to apply for the exam, which turned out to be a good thing since I then had much more time to properly prepare for the April deadline.
My main learning resources were the book Web Accessibility Cookbook by Manuel Matuzovic and the aforementioned body of knowledge on the IAAP website. I found additional useful sources, but each of them only covered a fraction of the exam topics.
For example, a site explaining WCAG doesn’t give any implementation tips, or a source about different types of disabilities fails to include any information about the standards. This meant I had a lot of pieces of knowledge, but I was missing the bigger picture.
The solution was a comprehensive web accessibility course to unlock more structured learning. After researching different course providers, the final decision was between Funka and Deque. I chose Deque, mostly because of great recommendations from different forums. Since quality courses are not free, I was very fortunate that Agiledrop covered this expense and allowed me to dedicate working hours to learning.
During this course, I discovered a lot of accessibility considerations that we tend to overlook:
- The importance of understanding different disability types
- How people manage and interact with digital content
- Being familiar with the whole spectrum of assistive technologies and how to test with them
- How seemingly small coding choices can have a huge impact on accessibility
Building a Web Accessibility Guide app – A11y Kolega
When I first started preparing for the exam, I was taking notes by hand, since this has always been the most reliable memorisation method for me. I also printed out WCAG titles and lists, while adding additional key notes throughout the process.
After a few lessons, I realised three key things:
- Web accessibility also includes code (shocking, I know!), and so handwritten notes aren’t the most efficient learning method (again – shocking!)
- There’s little room for expanding older notes / the specific topic
- And, most importantly: I can’t share my learning with colleagues who are looking for an accessible solution to an issue they’re having
This led to the idea of building a simple website that would easily facilitate both taking and sharing notes. The main features would be:
- Topics explained in simple ways at basic levels – for those who don’t have the time/drive for in-depth research and are only looking for accessible solutions
- Additional reading options for those who want to understand the why more deeply
- All the different aspects of web accessibility covered comprehensively in one single place
It’s not realistic to expect every developer at a company of 50+ developers to complete the exam and obtain the certification. It makes much more sense to ensure a basic level of knowledge which improves understanding and leads to more accessible code. Having all the resources in one place would accomplish just that.
So, with the help of AI, I set up a basic environment and started to take notes in the application itself. I divided it into six chapters:
- A11y standards, with the biggest focus on WCAG standards, but also including others such as EN 301 549
- Types of disabilities
- ARIA
- Assistive technologies
- Testing with different technologies
- Examples of accessible code
The exam
IAAP opened applications for the next WAS exam at the start of March. I was a bit surprised that even just applying for the exam required a certain level of prior knowledge with at least 3-5 years of experience. I was even more surprised that the replies to the application questions took 15 A4 pages in MS Word.
After a week, I received an email confirming that I was accepted as an exam candidate, and I was able to choose a date for the exam. I chose the middle of April, which gave me a month of intensive learning and preparation.
The exam was done online, through an external provider of IAAP. On the day of the exam, I made all the necessary preparations that I had been instructed to make – moving everything but my laptop off my desk, turning off and covering all additional screens, etc.
The process and the questions were no surprise to me, since the IAAP website provides a thorough description of the process and the contents, as well as some example questions.
The exam is done in English and has 75 questions which are divided into three thematic sections. Participants have two hours to complete it, without any external assistance or distraction. The answers are of the A/B/C/D type. If English is not your first language, you’re entitled to an extra hour of exam time.
Results typically arrive in 4-6 weeks, and they conveniently turned out to come just as I was preparing this article. I’m very happy to announce that I passed the exam and am now a certified Web Accessibility Specialist!
I can’t really say this was the result I was definitely expecting, as my feelings after taking the exam were a bit mixed. Still, I’m sure that my prior knowledge, interest in the topic and in particular my programming skills all contributed to this positive result. The other colleague who took the exam also passed, so the team now has two certified web accessibility specialists.
The cost
It’s important to also talk about the cost of taking such an exam. IAAP’s WAS certification exam costs around €470, which is quite a substantial amount for an individual. The more realistic scenario is therefore that the company decides for certain employees to get certified, especially as it wants to provide qualified personnel to help clients achieve compliance.
In addition to the actual exam, the preparatory course represented an additional cost – in my case, €270 (the typical range is €200-350). Although not technically required, this course was a very beneficial investment to help me understand accessibility more comprehensively.
I was lucky enough to get both of these covered by my employer, Agiledrop. They also recognised the importance of learning and allowed me to dedicate my working hours to it. All in all, the preparations took about two months.
Together with the Web Accessibility Cookbook mentioned earlier and all the initial photocopies (approximately an additional €80), the entire cost amounted to €820.
As I said, it’s not realistic to have every developer and/or content manager go through this exam process. In our case, the A11y Kolega app I talked about earlier is an adequate resource for the vast majority of common accessibility issues that we face.
Conclusion
In addition to obtaining the title of Web Accessibility Specialist, going through this process has helped me advance my knowledge, which will result in better code and more accessible apps and websites.
As I mentioned before, I’m one of two certified WAS at Agiledrop, but we are certainly not the only accessibility experts on the team. As a company, we’ve been prioritising accessibility for a long time, both for the public sector as well as for NGOs and the private sector.
In the spirit of open source, we also decided to publicly release the A11y Kolega app that I had built, so it’s available as a free, easily accessible resource for those interested in accessibility and/or those who need to quickly reference something during their work.
If you have more specific accessibility issues that cannot easily be solved by referencing the app, or if you need a thorough accessibility audit, we at Agiledrop will be happy to help you out. Learn more about our accessibility-focused services, and feel free to reach out directly for specific questions and inquiries.
