Usability & Accessibility Testing Lead

The Usability and Accessibility Testing (UAT) Lead is the operational engine of digital equity at the Pakistan Digital Authority (PDA). Operating within the UAT Lab, you will manage the day-to-day, rigorous evaluation of citizen-facing digital products before they launch. Leading and mentoring a dedicated team of UAT specialists (Senior to Junior), you will architect the testing pipeline, design complex evaluative scripts, and orchestrate both physical and remote testing sessions. You are the critical link between the citizen and the developer. You are not just logging bugs; you are providing rapid, high-fidelity, and highly actionable empirical feedback that forces the engineering and design departments to iterate toward inclusive perfection. **What You'll Do** - **Architect Test Operations (TestOps** ): Design, scale, and govern comprehensive test plans, usablílity studies, heuristics, and evaluative frameworks for major national digital portals and new product features - **.Moderate High-Stakes Session** s: Expertly moderate complex, human-participant usability testing sessions with diverse citizen cohorts. This includes ethically and empathetically engaging marginalized populations, the elderly, and citizens requiring advanced assistive technologies - **.Execute Rigorous Audit** s: Conduct exhaustive, expert-level accessibility audits (combining automated sweeps with manual testing). Ensure strict adherence to WCAG 2.1+ AA/AAA compliance, screen-reader compatibility (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver), keyboard-only navigation, and cognitive accessibility standards - **.Synthesize & Prioritiz** e: Transform raw usability failures, accessibility blockers, and citizen frustration into highly structured, prioritized development tickets. Translate human experiences into precise, code-level remediation steps for engineering and design teams - **.Presentation & Stakeholder Management** : Develop and deliver high-impact presentations for leadership, engineering, product, and external stakeholders. Drive alignment across departments by clearly communicating research findings, accessibility risks, product gaps, and strategic recommendations - **.Embed QA in Agil** e: Partner closely with Product Managers and UX Leads to integrate UAT seamlessly into the agile sprint cycle, ensuring no code is shipped without empirical validation - **.Mentorship & Quality Contro** l: Mentor mid-level and junior UAT staff, ensuring a consistently high bar for heuristic evaluation, script writing, bias-free moderation, and data synthesis **.** **What You Have** - **Experience** : 5+ years of applied experience in Usability Testing, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Accessibility Testing, UX Research, or Specialized QA Leadership within complex enterprise, GovTech, telecom, fintech, or heavily regulated environments. Proven expertise in conducting usability studies, heuristic evaluations, accessibility audits, eye-tracking research, cognitive walkthroughs, task analysis, and user behavior analysis across digital ecosystem - **Research Methodologies & Tool Master** y: Deep operational proficiency in qualitative and quantitative UX research methodologies, including moderated and unmoderated usability testing, eye-tracking usability studies, heuristic evaluations, A/B testing, accessibility evaluations, card sorting, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and journey mapping. Hands-on expertise with in-person lab hardware and remote testing platforms such as UserTesting, Lookback, and Tobii Pro Lab. Strong command of accessibility evaluation and QA tools including Axe Core, Google Lighthouse, and WAVE - **Technical Fluency** : Strong practical understanding of semantic HTML, WAI-ARIA frameworks, accessibility engineering principles, responsive design systems, and front-end development limitations. Ability to collaborate effectively with engineering teams and communicate accessibility remediation requirements in technically actionable language - **Insight Reporting & Presentation Skills** : Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex usability findings, accessibility gaps, and behavioral insights into executive-ready reports, dashboards, presentations, and prioritized recommendations for product, design, engineering, and leadership stakeholders - **Analytical & Systemic Thinking** : Exceptional analytical and systems-thinking capability. Skilled in identifying root-cause UX and accessibility issues beyond surface-level defects, uncovering structural usability barriers, interaction inefficiencies, and digital inclusion gaps impacting diverse user group - **Stakeholder Management & Collaboration** : Proven experience managing cross-functional stakeholders, aligning product, engineering, QA, accessibility, and leadership teams around user-centered improvements, delivery priorities, and compliance objectives - **Empathetic Moderation** : High emotional intelligence (EQ) with the ability to confidently moderate sensitive usability sessions involving elderly users, marginalized communities, low-literacy citizens, and participants performing complex civic or financial tasks. Skilled at creating psychologically safe and bias-free testing environment.