This is an archive copy of an interview posted at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/interview-henry-catalini-smith-iaap-eu-upelf.
Why did you become certified?
We did a six month long retrofitting project in my department at Spotify, which was a dream come true for me after many years of wanting to deepen my accessibility knowledge. The amount of love and hard work I put into that work led to expertise that felt worthwhile to upgrade to something more formal.
By the end of that retrofitting project, I was absolutely hooked too. I knew I wanted more work like this in future. Certification seemed like a means to that end.
What has the certification meant to your career/to you personally?
Certification really does help attract accessibility work. Plenty of engineers have the word WCAG on their CV because they've done a bit of retrofitting after an audit. The certification is a way to stand out from that crowd as someone who's invested extra effort into the specialisation. It was a big factor in landing my current job at Sveriges Radio, whose broadcast permit from the government includes a clause imposing high accessibility standards on them. In that sense certification has opened a door into an environment with even better preconditions for success.
Once you're inside an organisation you're always going to start identifying opportunities to advance their accessibility too. That might be process improvements, technical changes, or who knows what. Then I think it's a big early credibility boost if you're coming in with the same certification as the consultants they're already paying for audits.
What would you say professional certification means for society/our community at large?
For me its importance is in what it does for the status of accessibility in society. Within the software industry, for example, a prejudice exists that devalues human-oriented work on user interface software (also known as front end) in comparison to computer-oriented work on server software (also known as back end). The existence of certification serves as a counterweight to that, helping to spread the understanding that accessibility is a serious intellectual pursuit.
When I consider all the barriers that have been brought down by the hard-won victories of the web accessibility community so far, I'm convinced this is one of the most important success stories of the ongoing digital transformation of society.
Any additional thoughts on IAAP membership?
IAAP membership seemed a little abstract back in 2023 when I did my exams. Now with my renewal dates getting closer the value seems much clearer. In hindsight membership would've been a good investment from the very start.