[Hiring] Web Content Designer @ACI Infotech

Role Description

The Web Content Designer will drive the State's initiatives for accessibility optimization. Responsibilities include:

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

Main responsibilities are broken down into seven areas:

Assessment

• Audit current State systems, internal processes, and customer-facing assets to find accessibility issues, creating prioritization models and project plans for addressing them.
• Summarize accessibility findings and provide recommendations for remediation, including code-level recommendations and solutions.
• Evaluate new vendor products for compliance with accessibility standards, improving 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 compliance levels against standardized benchmarks, and create reports identifying State gaps and violations.
• Align with leadership and State 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 State regulatory policies.
• Assist project teams with management activities related to accessibility requirements.
• Develop a process for identifying business needs around translated assets and provide guidance for asset governance.
• Provide compliance guidance for the creation of visual media assets and assist in their creation 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.

Communication

• Serve as an effective spokesperson and advocate for digital accessibility.
• Work with CTDS leadership to broadly champion digital accessibility.
• Conduct regular outreach and ad-hoc communications support for State teams around accessibility practices.
• Provide success metrics and KPI reporting to stakeholders, identifying areas of improvement and challenges.
• Keep leadership apprised of progress, challenges, and outcomes related to State 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 and develop training materials for teams.
• Shape enterprise accessibility guidance with cross-functional teams and promote its importance.
• Develop and implement ongoing accessibility program activities and share-outs for stakeholders and vendors.

Maintaining

• Provide enterprise governance of accessibility requirements and consistent oversight to keep the State in regulatory compliance.
• Establish relationships between State and external customers to ensure accessibility needs are surfaced.
• Contribute content on accessibility standards for current State guidebooks to improve enterprise standards.
• Stay updated on the latest advances in WCAG, ADA, and Section 508 regulations and best practices.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience assessing and improving digital materials and services to comply with regulatory accessibility standards (WCAG, ADA, Section 508).
• 5+ years of experience conducting QA activities on systems and products.
• 2+ years of product or project owner experience.
• 2+ years of experience with language translation efforts.
• Expertise in auditing systems and products for accessibility issues.
• Strong expertise in assistive technology tools.
• Demonstrated proficiency with applying user-centered design methodologies.
• Strong understanding of responsive web design principles.
• Experience assessing and mitigating accessibility issues on internal business processes.
• Experience creating or contributing to the development of an accessibility policy.
• Demonstrated experience establishing governance standards and processes.
• Creative out-of-the-box thinking for optimizing services.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively.
• Experience as a mentor or coach for product teams.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Proficient with KPI and success metric development.
• Expert in facilitating the remediation of accessibility issues.
• Strong ability to create and maintain documentation.
• Ability to explain technical issues to non-technical stakeholders.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree is required.
• A total of 5 years of experience working in accessibility optimization.
• 2+ years of experience in assessing and optimizing digital assets for accessibility needs.
• Experience with WebAIM services and training.
• Strong written and oral communication skills.
• Strong organizational skills and experience with project management software.
• Experience in balancing a diverse workload of projects.
• Excellent time management skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Ability to set rigid practices for accessibility optimization solutions.
• Strong proficiency with MS Suite and other relevant tools.

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.
• Experience in accessibility compliance for chatbots and other communication tools.
• Experience in accessibility compliance for analog formats.
• Experience with digital forms and documents remediation.
• Proficiency with Adobe XD, Jira/Confluence, Sitecore, and Salesforce.
• Knowledge of basic research methods and tools.

Desired Certifications

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