Section 508 Trusted Tester Certification

Level Access is proud to announce that two team members, Chief Accessibility Officer Jonathan Avila and QA Engineer Michael Ohm, have received their Section 508 Trusted Tester Certification from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Accessible Systems & Technology (OAST).

What is a Trusted Tester?

A trusted tester is an individual that is certified to independently provide accurate Section 508 compliance test results for software and web applications by following the DHS Section 508 Compliance Application Test Process and using approved testing tools.

In an effort to standardize their approach to Section 508 agency-wide, DHS created the Trusted Tester program to certify employees to evaluate software and web applications for Section 508 compliance.

How to become a Section 508 Trusted Tester

The Trusted Tester Training Track is provided by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Accessible Systems & Technology.  Students earn their Tested Truster certification after passing the Trusted Tester Certification exam.  More recently DHS has partnered with the Social Security Administration (SSA) to take the program a step further, outlining baseline tests that were vetted by a best practices team and based on current and emerging standards from both Section 508 and WCAG 2.0. In the long term, the goal would be for federal agencies to adopt a unified, government-wide testing approach for reliable and repeatable testing across agencies.

What does this accessibility testing certification mean for Level Access clients?

Our Trusted Testers have an in-depth understanding of baseline tests that are used inter-agency to test for Section 508 and are certified to perform testing for clients that need to meet DHS or baseline requirements.  In addition, we can work with clients to develop testing processes founded on the baseline tests and harmonized with the DHS test process. The DHS test process can be also be used in conjunction with Level Access’ Accessibility Management Platform (AMP).