How to Build Accessibility Training That Sticks

Accessibility training only works when people apply what they learn. Too often, teams increase accessibility awareness, but lack the practical support needed to change everyday decisions.

Teams attend sessions, learn how people with disabilities use digital products, and practice fixing the kind of bugs that are critical but easy to miss. They leave with good intentions, but six weeks later, the same accessibility issues are back in production.

The problem is the gap between learning and putting that learning into practice. Awareness is a useful starting point, but it isn’t enough.

Training sticks when it shifts teams from awareness to action, with support and resources available at the moment they’re needed.

So, how can you implement training that makes a real difference for teams? That’s what we discussed in our recent webinar, From Buy-In to Built-In: Accessibility Learning as an Engine for Lasting Leadership Support, with leaders from Atos, the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP), and Salesforce.

Our conversation covered the growing importance of training in accessibility success—including how education helps win executive buy in—and strategies for building learning programs that make accessibility knowledge easier to apply over time.

Here are a few takeaways from our session.

What makes accessibility training effective?

Foundational awareness-building is important. Teams need to understand how people with disabilities use technology. But practical accessibility knowledge can no longer sit with a small group of specialists. Products move too fast and teams are too interconnected for that model to hold.

The strongest programs combine role-specific content with guidance embedded in the flow of work, giving teams checklists, job aids, and reference materials they can use mid-project, when the decisions are actually being made. Adults learn through relevance: solving real problems, in context. And they need guidance at the right time—not weeks before they have to apply it.

Effective accessibility training also needs to reflect the reality of how teams work in the age of AI. Because AI is intrinsic to the development process, the boundaries between roles are shifting. Designers are writing code. Developers are making design decisions. Training programs that reflect yesterday’s role boundaries will miss most of the people who need them.

The link between training and executive buy-in

Accessibility training builds team capability, but it can also be a powerful engine for executive buy-in. The data backs this up. According to our Seventh State of Digital Accessibility Report, professionals with access to highly effective training are:

• 4.7x more likely to report strong executive support.
• 3.8x more likely to say accessibility contributes to revenue growth.
• 2.5x more likely to connect accessibility to customer acquisition.
• 2.4x more likely to link accessibility to customer retention.

Why is this? Effective training solves a translation problem. Training equips teams to connect accessibility to the outcomes executives already track—lost conversions, rising support costs, and retention risk. When that connection is clear, buy-in follows.

Why most training programs fall short

Mandatory compliance training is built around one limited metric: completion. People move through courses, answer quiz questions, and pass a final exam—but none of that tells us whether capability improved or behaviors changed.

Training gets delivered and completion rates get logged, yet the same accessibility issues continue to surface.

“Organizations need to make sure knowledge gained is being applied to behavior change if they want to drive accessibility forward.”

– Katie Puskarich, Senior Manager of Product Accessibility Enablement at Salesforce

Here are three reasons most programs fall short:

1. Generic content builds awareness, not practical skills. Teams learn that accessibility matters, but they still lack actionable guidance for the decisions they make every day. Too often, accessibility courses aren’t aligned with how teams actually work.
2. One-off learning doesn’t stick. The forgetting curve shows that new information is quickly forgotten without reinforcement, yet many programs still rely on a single-session model.
3. Teams don’t have capacity. As Beatriz González Mellídez, Head of Accessibility & Digital Inclusion Central Europe at Atos, noted, the people most motivated to learn are often already stretched across client projects. They care about the work, but they don’t have protected time to build the skills.

Six ways to build training that sticks

Here are six ways our panelists recommended making accessibility learning easier to adopt, reinforce, and sustain.

1. Start with shared language.

Introductory training should help teams align on what accessibility means across your organization. Misaligned definitions are a fast way to create confusion and slow progress. For global teams, translation isn’t enough. González Mellídez emphasized that vocabulary also needs to reflect the context, culture, and legal landscape colleagues are working in.

“We need to talk about the shared language we use at work to make it more inclusive and accessible for all: We cannot afford to forget about global and local languages, cultures, and diversity.”

-Beatriz González Mellídez, Head of Accessibility & Digital Inclusion Central Europe, Atos

2. Make training role-specific.

Designers, developers, content authors, and compliance leads make different types of accessibility decisions—and they need guidance that’s tailored to these unique decisions. Generic courses may create awareness, but role-specific training changes behavior.

The Level Access Academy is built around this reality, with on-demand training designed around the way different teams really work.

3. Prioritize lived experience over simulation.

The most effective accessibility training brings teams closer to the real experiences of people with disabilities. Involve native assistive technology users in the learning process so they can show how they navigate digital products and services in everyday contexts.

Simulation exercises are often used with the right intentions, but they can do more harm than good. As González Mellídez explained, “We need to be extremely careful because a disability cannot be simulated in a couple of hours. You lack the years and years of lived experience that native assistive technology users have.” These activities can reduce disability to a temporary inconvenience, reinforcing assumptions rather than challenging them.

4. Measure behavior change, not completion.

Completion rates tell you who finished a course. They don’t tell you whether the training changed how people work. As Puskarich put it, “Training is not just about providing information. It’s about behavior change.” Training only becomes valuable when teams put it into practice.

Focus on evidence of behavior change: Are developers catching issues earlier? Are accessibility defects declining sprint over sprint? Are teams applying what they learned without waiting to be asked? Those are the metrics that give leadership a reason to keep investing.

5. Invest in certification as a credibility signal.

As the accessibility profession matures, organizations need reliable ways to identify people with verified expertise.

IAAP’s certification ecosystem has grown from just 35 certified professionals in 2016 to more than 10,000 today, and employers increasingly list these credentials as preferred qualifications.

Why is that? According to Christopher Lee, PhD, CEO and President of G3ict and Managing Director of IAAP, certifications give hiring managers confidence that a candidate’s accessibility expertise has been tested. Employees value them for the same reason.

“Employees increasingly view certifications as a reliable indicator that they have the skill set to lead accessibility efforts—not just the knowledge.” 

– Christopher Lee, PhD, CEO and President of G3ict and Managing Director of IAAP

6. Make accessibility training part of the culture.

Compliance mandates can drive attendance, but they don’t guarantee behavior change.

The organizations that sustain the strongest accessibility cultures recognize and reward ongoing education. They celebrate wins, connect expertise to career progression, and create spaces where people want to engage with accessibility concepts. That’s how training moves from required participation to a sustained practice.

Move from accessibility buy-in to accessibility built-in

Today’s accessibility champions are being asked to rethink how training is delivered and sustained. The organizations making the most progress are not treating accessibility as a periodic reminder, but as a habit embedded into everyday work.

The strongest programs create buy-in and build capability at the same time. They connect accessibility to business priorities, reinforce learning in the flow of work, and make it easier for teams to apply good practices at the time decisions are made.

Tune into the full conversation with Level Access, IAAP, Atos, and Salesforce for practical strategies and real-world examples you can bring back to your teams.