IAAP CAP study guide
IAAP CAP · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The IAAP Certified Accessibility Professional (CAP) is a vendor-neutral credential for people who plan, build, review, or govern accessible digital and physical environments. It sits alongside IAAP's more specialised technical certifications, and it is aimed at practitioners whose work spans strategy as well as execution: accessibility leads, programme managers, procurement and policy staff, designers, developers, content owners, and consultants who need to demonstrate breadth rather than deep specialism in a single technology. The IAAP CAP study guide has 9 sections and about 3,102 words.
01Foundations of Disability, Accessibility, and Inclusive Design
The medical model locates disability in the person and treats it as a defect to be fixed. The social model separates impairment (a condition of body or mind) from disability (the barriers society erects).
334 words, about 2 min02Accessibility Standards, Laws, Regulations, and Policy
ADA (1990) - Title I employment, Title II state and local government, Title III public accommodations and commercial facilities, Title IV telecommunications relay, Title V miscellany. The ADA Amendments Act (2008) intentionally broadened what counts as disability.
364 words, about 2 min03Digital Accessibility: Web, Software, and Mobile
The POUR model - Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust - organizes WCAG's success criteria into Levels A, AA, AAA . AA is the practical target; AAA is rarely achievable across a whole product and is generally not required.
331 words, about 2 min04Accessible Documents, Content, and Media
Accessible authoring starts upstream : build the source file correctly rather than retrofitting. In Word, PowerPoint, and InDesign, that means real heading styles (not bolded paragraphs), lists, meaningful hyperlink text, alt text, column-header table markup, document language, and a file name used as the title.
338 words, about 2 min05Assistive Technologies and User Interaction
Screen readers : JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, TalkBack, Narrator. Output is speech and/or braille; users navigate by headings, landmarks, lists, and form controls, not by scanning pixels.
337 words, about 2 min06Non-Digital and Built Environment Accessibility
In the U.S., the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design set scoping (what must be accessible) and technical requirements (how). ABA standards cover federal facilities; state and local codes (often based on IBC/ANSI A117.1) may be stricter, and the stricter rule governs.
362 words, about 2 min07Accessibility Program Strategy, Governance, and Procurement
A durable program has a policy (scope, standard, roles), an owner with authority, a roadmap with prioritized remediation, and metrics . Mature programs shift from reactive complaint-fixing to proactive design: accessibility requirements in the definition of done , in design system components , and in acceptance criteria .
351 words, about 2 min08Research, Testing, and User Evaluation with People with Disabilities
Automated scanning - fast, repeatable, and shallow. Commonly catches only a fraction of real issues (roughly a third), mostly mechanical ones like missing alt text or contrast.
345 words, about 2 min09Training, Communication, and Organizational Change
One-off awareness sessions produce goodwill, not competence. Effective programs are role-based and just-in-time : designers learn inclusive patterns and design-system usage; developers learn semantics, ARIA discipline, and accessible component testing; content authors learn alt text, headings, captions, and plain language; procurement and legal learn ACRs and contract clauses; leadership learns risk, market, and legal exposure.
340 words, about 2 min