https://www.hl.co.uk/

At Hargreaves Lansdown we help more than 1.3 million people save and invest with confidence.
Our user-centred design team is growing and we’re looking for an experienced accessibility expert to play a key role in the creation and ongoing development of our design system. The design system is a new endeavour for us and we're building a team tasked with helping improve the quality, consistency and development speed of our digital products.
The design system will touch every part the digital estate, empowering our colleagues to deliver intuitive and meaningful experiences to our clients at pace.
This is a fantastic opportunity to be involved in an exciting and transformative product from the start where you’ll be working closely with researchers, designers, engineers and product managers from across the business.

Responsibilities

As an Accessibility Experience Designer within the design system team, you will:
- help define and promote accessibility best practice across HL to ensure our products and services are accessible by all, by default
- help achieve an inclusive mindset across HL by leading initiatives to build awareness and increase skills and knowledge
- collaborate with the User Research capability and 3rd party suppliers to coordinate research with people with access needs
- conduct reviews and audits with external squads (web and mobile) to evaluate accessibility and provide recommendations
- provide ad-hoc accessibility support to colleagues across the business through consultancy and code contributions
- collaborate with your team to define and document the governance, processes and principles needed to manage the design system and put inclusivity at the heart of our design decisions
- collaborate with your team and external squads to define and document accessibility standards
- collaborate with engineering, design, product and marketing capabilities to ensure accessibility is considered throughout the design and delivery process (WCAG 2.1 AA standard)
- iterate the design system based on evidence and sound rationale
- proactively communicate changes and updates to the design system to colleagues and stakeholders across HL

Required experience and skills

We will want to see evidence that you:
- have excellent knowledge of HTML, WAI ARIA and CSS (relating to accessibility)
- have excellent knowledge of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (2.1 -‘AA’ standard)
- have excellent knowledge of assistive technologies across multiple platforms
- have excellent knowledge of user agent and automated accessibility verification tools
- have excellent knowledge of established design and interaction patterns
- have experience testing products with users with a wide range of assistive technologies
- have experience driving organisational change through advocacy and coaching
- can understand the unique accessibility challenges faced by Financial Services

Desirable experience

Not essential, but we would like to see evidence that you have:
- have excellent knowledge of JavaScript
- have experience using distributed version-control systems (for example, GIT)
- have experience of contributing to design systems for digital products
- have experience following a user-centred design process within an Agile environment