Job Information
MSys Inc. Digital Accessibility Expert in United States
Job summary:
Title:
Digital Accessibility Expert
Location:
Remote
Length and terms:
6 Months with Extension - W2 or C2C
Position created on 06/27/2024 08:20 pm
Job description:
* Webcam interview 6 Months with Extension Remote **
About the Role:
Digital Accessibility Expert who has strong experience in assessing, strategizing, and implementing a11y and usability improvements for digital products and services. You will help identify issues, assess solutions, and provide remediation needs across service verticals that include health, business, education, transportation, employment, IT, and Customer Service. You will also help test digital assets for a11y compliance, including websites, mobile apps, online documents, applications, and digital forms. Your expertise will help the state reach the highest levels of WCAG compliance and maintain a11y standards so all our residents can participate in equivalent experiences.
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 support a holistic approach to accessibility improvements to foster a stronger culture of human centered and user first design. You will audit internal systems, platforms, and processes for legacy issues. You will also support cross functional teams in applying modern a11y improvements to products and services, including Content, UX, Design, and Product teams. You will assist in training teams to conform to WCAG 2.2 standards for digital assets and information. And you will engage stakeholders to help drive implementation and advocacy for a11y 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.
Is This You?
Problem Solver. You are comfortable navigating bureaucracy to address wicked problems.Iterative. You understand and accept the value of incremental improvement.Service Oriented. You are passionate about government innovation and improving services for your fellow residents.
Main Responsibilities
NOTE: This is a testing heavy role. Auditing and testing of digital assets are a core requirement of this position.
Conduct testing and implement improvements to digital products, services, and processes to ensure the State is meeting the highest standards of accessibility compliance
Be a bridge between a11y leadership and state teams, helping to integrate a practice of inclusionary methodologies and enterprise standards
Assist with code review and remediation, helping developers and engineers quickly apply best practice solutions for critical usability issues
This role will support the States initiatives for accessibility optimization. To better understand the needs, we broke down additional responsibilities into seven main areas.
Assessment:
Audit current State 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 State 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 State compliance, rank the compliance level against standardized benchmarks, and create reports that identify State gaps and violations by platform, service, process, asset type, and customer journey touchpoints
Align with State Accessibility leadership to help support the roadmap, vision, and strategy for enterprise digital accessibility
Strategy & Development:
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 State regulatory policies
Assist Accessibility and project teams with management activities related to accessibility requirements (i.e, tracking deliverables and tasks, documentation, asset/artifact management, etc.)
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 state websites and online assets
Integrate testing policies for meeting State accessibility standards on all product and service development, including development from external vendors
Communication:
Support internal and external facing engagements to help advocate for digital accessibility
Work with State Accessibility leadership to broadly champion digital accessibility
Conduct regular outreach as well as ad hoc communications support for state teams around accessibility practices
Provide success metrics and KPI reporting to stakeholders and identify areas of improvement and challenges from optimization efforts
Keep Accessibility leadership apprised of progress, challenges, and outcomes related to the efforts of State a11y 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
Help support enterprise accessibility guidance with cross functional teams and promote its importance through coaching and communities of practice
Develop and implement ongoing accessibility program activities and share outs for business stakeholders and vendors to support the States evangelization of inclusionary design
Maintaining:
Assist enterprise governance of accessibility requirements, including oversight, accountability, and tactical support to keep the State in regulatory compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local laws
Establish relationships between State and external customers to ensure accessibility needs are consistently surfaced and that State 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
Stay on top of the latest advances in WCAG, ADA, and Section 508 regulations and best practices, and create plans/processes for efficient optimization of State accessibility 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 2.2 AA
5+ years of testing 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 glaze 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:
Bachelors 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, testing, and optimizing digital assets for accessibility needs, including websites, visual media, communication tools, online applications, documents, and video conferencing tools
Experience with software like eVinced, Axe, and WebAIM
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 lay 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
DHS Trusted Tester certification
Contact the recruiter working on this position:
The recruiter working on this position is Sandeep(Shaji Team) Maraganti
His/her contact number is His/her contact email is sandeep.maraganti@msysinc.com
Our recruiters will be more than happy to help you to get this contract.