Web Content Designer

Digital Accessibility Specialist/ Web Content Designer - Level 4
Remote Role!!!

About the Role
The client is seeking a Digital Accessibility Specialist who has strong experience in assessing, strategizing, and implementing user accessibility improvements for digital products and services. You will bridge the verticals of Business, IT, Customer Experience, and Design to ensure government meets the highest standards of inclusion for our residents.

This role will require a deep familiarity with the requirements and processes for complying with current and future accessibility guidelines as documented in WCAG, ADA, and Section 508 standards. This role will also help build a 360-degree approach to the accessibility needs for services and experiences provided by the client. You will audit internal systems and processes, guide research methods, strategies for UX and product development, create training materials, establish success tracking, and engage with stakeholders to implement and advocate for accessibility best practices.

The ideal candidate will also champion customer needs by promoting the humanity behind inclusionary practices. You will be an empathic problem-solver who can move teams toward higher standards while staying focused on the impact your efforts will have on the people who need government services.
This is a next level opportunity. Your work will change lives.

Responsibilities

Conduct reviews and implement improvements to digital products, services, and processes to ensure the client is meeting the highest standards of accessibility compliance
Develop and lead a practice of inclusionary methodologies and integrate these enterprise standards across client teams
Assist the development of new client accessibility policies, aligning with regulatory requirements and the experiential needs of external users

This role will drive the clients initiatives for accessibility optimization. To better understand the needs, we broke down the main responsibilities into seven main areas.

Assessment

Audit current client systems, internal processes, and customer-facing assets to find accessibility issues, and create prioritization models and project plans for addressing
Clearly summarize accessibility findings and provide recommendations for remediation, including code-level recommendations and solutions
Evaluate new vendor products for compliance with accessibility standards, and help improve the client procurement process for technology and digital services
Utilize and interpret multiple sources of research data to make credible recommendations for accessibility improvements


Documentation

Document current levels of client compliance, rank the compliance level against standardized benchmarks, and create reports that identify client gaps and violations by platform, service, process, asset type, and customer journey touchpoints
Align with leadership and client accessibility advocates to help define and maintain the roadmap, vision, and strategy for enterprise digital accessibility


Strategy & Development

Serve as the product owner of accessibility strategies, enterprise standards, and procedures for meeting inclusionary compliance standards
Support accessibility initiatives that foster environments where everyone can thrive, including employees along the full range of neurodiversity
Collaborate with internal and external partners to identify needs and incorporate best practice policies for accessibility
Work with Legal and Legislative teams to align accessibility guidance with client regulatory policies
Assist project teams with management activities related to accessibility requirements (i.e, tracking deliverables and tasks, documentation, asset/artifact management, etc.)
Develop a process for identifying business need around translated assets, help stakeholders engage with translation efforts and provide guidance for asset governance
Provide compliance guidance for the creation of visual media assets, and assist in the creation of these assets as assigned


Test/QA

Conduct and execute routine usability and accessibility checks for client websites and online assets
Integrate testing policies for meeting client accessibility standards on all product and service development, including development from external vendors


Communication

Serve as an effective spokesperson and advocate for digital accessibility
Work with client leadership to broadly champion digital accessibility
Conduct regular outreach as well as ad-hoc communications support for client teams around accessibility practices
Provide success metrics and KPI reporting to stakeholders and identify areas of improvement and challenges from optimization efforts
Keep leadership apprised of progress, challenges, and outcomes related to the efforts of client accessibility initiatives
Establish and maintain effective relationships across IT teams, business teams, legal teams, legislators, and vendors


Training

Conduct accessibility trainings addressing various stakeholder needs, develop training materials for teams, and serve as an accessibility asset point of contact
Shape enterprise accessibility guidance with cross-functional teams and promote its importance through leadership, coaching, and communities of practice
Develop and implement ongoing accessibility program activities and share-outs for business stakeholders and vendors to support the client’s evangelization of inclusionary design

Maintaining

Provide enterprise governance of accessibility requirements, along with consistent oversight, accountability, and tactical support to keep the client in regulatory compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local laws
Establish relationships between client and external customers to ensure accessibility needs are consistently surfaced and that client options are continually improved upon based on advances in technology
Contribute content on accessibility standards for current State guidebooks on Design, Research, Content, Development, Data, and Technology to consistently improve enterprise standards


Knowledge, Skills, and Ability

5+ years of experience assessing and improving digital materials and services (websites, digital interfaces, online transaction flows, PDFs, etc.) to comply with regulatory accessibility standards (WCAG, ADA, Section 508) - specifically WCAG 2.1 AA
5+ years of experience conducting QA activities on systems and products: analyzing needs, testing process flows, planning service improvements, assessing test data, and implementing accessibility solutions
2+ years of product or project owner experience, working collaboratively with teams to improve products and services using digital accessibility technologies, policies, and best practices
2+ years of experience with language translation efforts, including the oversight and maintenance of accessibility standards around translation services – both machine and manual.
Expertise in auditing systems and products to find accessibility issues, providing guidance for mitigating issues, and improving accessibility knowledge and practices within internal teams
Strong expertise in assistive technology tools such as JAWS, NVADA, Dragon, Fusion, deque, Wave, ZoomText. Also experience with built-in device features such as speech-to-text, text-to-speech, magnifiers, onscreen keyboards, eye gaze tech, and alternative mice/keyboards
Demonstrated proficiency with applying user-centered design (UCD) methodologies to effectively solve accessibility design problems
Strong understanding of responsive web design principles, techniques, and frameworks
Experience assessing and mitigating accessibility issues on internal business processes, including case management and data collection processes
Experience creating or contributing to the development of an accessibility policy for a business or institution
Demonstrated experience establishing governance standards and processes to support efficient maintenance of accessibility efforts
Creative out-of-the box thinking to provide solution-oriented guidance for optimizing services, using the latest digital accessibility techniques and tools
Can work both independently and collaboratively to advance accessibility standards in the UX, content, research, development, and technology spaces
Experience as a mentor or coach for product teams to promote accessibility-focused development within an agile system
Strong interpersonal and communication skills, including the ability to clearly present ideas and recommendations as well as receive and address challenges to your guidance
Proficient with KPI and success metric development, along with the ability to communicate the impact of accessibility efforts to stakeholders
Expert in facilitating the remediation of accessibility issues with little guidance
Strong ability to create and maintain documentation and best practice methodologies across multiple systems and functional areas
Ability to explain technical issues to non-technical stakeholders and communicate their implication on systems, processes, projects, and services. Able to facilitate discussions and solutions


Preferred Skills & Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree is required
A total of 5 years of experience working in the domain of accessibility optimization, with 2 years of highly relevant professional experience in Accessibility and Inclusion-based policy compliance
2+ years of experience in assessing and optimizing digital assets for accessibility needs, including websites, visual media, communication tools, online applications, documents, and video conferencing tools
Experience with WebAIM services and training
Strong written and oral communication skills, and responsiveness to leadership and stakeholder requests
Strong organizational skills and experience with project management software, along with project processes and best practices
Experience in balancing a diverse workload of projects, with varying complexities and unique needs
Excellent time management skills, with an ability to Client out clear project goals, timelines, and target dates
Ability to work independently as well as part of a team to reach program goals and meet dynamic business objectives
Ability to set rigid practices for accessibility optimization solutions, while maintaining flexibility for ad-hoc needs
Strong proficiency with MS Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and Zoom

Other Desired Skills

Degree in Human Computer Interaction, UX Design, Psychology, Instructional Design, or Computer Science
Experience in developing or designing inclusionary products or services in web applications, using standard technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery)
Experience in accessibility compliance for chatbots and other customer communication tools
Experience in accessibility compliance for analog formats like Word, Powerpoint, and print marketing assets
Experience with digital forms and documents remediation to meet accessibility stabdards
Proficiency with Adobe XD, Jira/Confluence, Sitecore, and Salesforce
Knowledge of basic research methods and tools, and data visualization tools


Desired Certifications

IAAP certification (CPACC, WAS, etc.)
PMP certification
Client Trusted Tester certification