Digital Accessibility Expert

Job Title: Digital Accessibility Expert Location: Hartford, CT/REMOTE Duration: 6+ Months This is Us The State of Connecticut is leading a new digital transformation to uplift the lives and well-being of our residents, businesses, and employees. Our goal is to improve access to our programs and services, making interaction with government easier. When you join the Connecticut Digital Service, you'll be part of a team creating simple experiences personalized for everyone. If you enjoy solving complex problems with a curious, supportive, high-performing team, then the State of Connecticut is the place for you. 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. About the Role The State of Connecticut (CT) is seeking a 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. 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 State's 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 State's 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

• 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, 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

Administrative Considerations The Digital Accessibility Expert will work under State Accessibility leadership on the Digital Services team. They will be part of an iterative team using agile sprints. Work will be assigned based on items in the product backlog associated with Website Improvements. These tasks may be adjusted, reduced, or expanded as the project progresses through various phases. The contract employee shall be expected to maintain and provide written documentation on any work performed in conjunction with this engagement. The engagement will be for a term of up to 6 months. All work will be performed in eight (8) hour shifts, Monday to Friday, excluding State holidays. If workflow dictates an on-site presence is not needed, consultant may work remotely. Payment will be on a time and material basis and paid only for hours worked. State Agencies are in downtown Hartford and the Greater Hartford area. Local Travel Reimbursement is not provided. Use of State Resources: The contractor will be provided with a virtual desktop environment that will allow the contractor to use their own computer to access and engage with State systems. Security/Privacy Considerations : Information accessible by the contractor may be sensitive, confidential or subject to the Privacy Act and/or HIPAA considerations. Contractor personnel must be familiar with and comply with the provisions of appropriate regulations and/or instructions. Signing of a confidentiality agreement will be required. Daily sign-in to the facility may be required. The contractor employee must always display an access badge while present in state facilities. A background check will be required. STI