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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Digital Accessibility Specialist

💰 $ - $

AccessibilityUXQAComplianceIT

🎯 Role Definition

A Digital Accessibility Specialist is responsible for ensuring that digital products—websites, mobile apps, PDFs, multimedia, and internal tools—are accessible to people with disabilities and meet legal and organizational accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA, ADA, Section 508). This role combines technical auditing, remediation guidance, user testing with assistive technologies, accessibility policy development, and cross-functional training to embed inclusive design and accessibility best practices across product, design, development, and content teams.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • UX Designer with accessibility focus
  • Front-end Developer with HTML/CSS/JS expertise
  • QA Analyst with accessibility testing experience

Advancement To:

  • Accessibility Program Manager / Head of Accessibility
  • Director of Inclusive Design / UX Accessibility Lead
  • Compliance & Accessibility Consultant (Senior)

Lateral Moves:

  • UX Researcher (inclusive design)
  • Front-end Engineering (specializing in accessible components)
  • Content Strategist with accessibility specialization

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Conduct comprehensive accessibility audits of websites, web applications, mobile applications, PDFs and multimedia against WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA standards, Section 508, and applicable local regulations, documenting issues, impact, and remediation priority.
  • Perform manual accessibility testing using screen readers (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver), keyboard-only navigation, and assistive input devices to validate real-world accessibility for people who use assistive technologies.
  • Run automated accessibility scans with industry tools (axe, WAVE, Lighthouse, Tenon) and reconcile automated findings with manual test results to produce actionable defect lists.
  • Create detailed remediation tickets for engineering and content teams including clear failure descriptions, reproduction steps, code snippets, ARIA recommendations, and prioritized severity and risk.
  • Triage accessibility defects reported from production, map them to root causes (HTML semantics, ARIA misuse, CSS/JS interactions), and propose code- and content-level fixes to reduce recurrence.
  • Collaborate with product managers and UX designers during discovery and design sprints to embed accessibility requirements, acceptance criteria, and inclusive design patterns into user stories and design systems.
  • Design and maintain accessible component libraries and design tokens (accessible color contrasts, semantic markup, focus states, keyboard interactions) to ensure consistent, scalable accessibility across product suites.
  • Lead or coordinate usability testing sessions with people with disabilities (screen reader users, keyboard-only users, cognitive and motor-impaired participants) to validate accessibility assumptions and inform product decisions.
  • Develop, maintain and enforce accessibility policies, standards, and governance frameworks that align with legal requirements and organizational goals, including procurement and vendor accessibility requirements.
  • Create and deliver targeted accessibility training and workshops for designers, developers, content authors, QA, product owners and leadership to increase organizational accessibility literacy and ownership.
  • Define measurable accessibility KPIs (e.g., percentage of pages meeting WCAG AA, number of open accessibility defects, remediation SLA) and produce executive dashboards and status reports to track program maturity.
  • Provide accessibility consultation during vendor selection and third-party integrations to ensure purchased products, plugins, and services meet accessibility standards or include acceptable remediation plans.
  • Review and remediate digital content (product copy, help articles, forms, dynamic content) to ensure accessible language, semantic HTML usage, proper heading structure, alt text for images, and descriptive link text.
  • Implement and maintain accessibility testing as part of CI/CD pipelines (linting, automated scans, regression checks) and integrate accessibility checks into functional test suites to prevent regressions.
  • Advise on accessible multimedia production: captioning, transcripts, audio descriptions, accessible media players, and keyboard-accessible media controls for video/audio assets.
  • Perform code reviews focused on accessibility: ARIA roles and attributes, semantic HTML usage, focus management, keyboard interaction models, and accessible dynamic content updates.
  • Coordinate remediation sprints with engineering teams, prioritize backlog items, estimate effort, and validate fixes in staging and production environments.
  • Maintain up-to-date knowledge of accessibility legislation (ADA, Section 508, EN 301 549), standards (WCAG 2.1, WCAG 2.2), assistive technologies, and evolving best practices; advise legal and compliance teams where needed.
  • Produce accessible design patterns, checklists, and guidance documentation for common UI elements (forms, tables, modals, dialogs, navigation, charts) to accelerate compliant development.
  • Advocate for inclusive recruitment and usability research practices to ensure diverse user representation and accessibility considerations are addressed in product roadmaps.
  • Support remediation of legacy systems and content with phased plans, risk assessments, and technical recommendations for refactors, overlays, or alternative access approaches.

Secondary Functions

  • Maintain an accessibility issue tracker and SLA processes for responding to reported barriers from customers or internal stakeholders.
  • Assist customer support and community teams by triaging accessibility-related tickets and communicating remediation timelines and workarounds.
  • Produce and maintain accessibility statement(s) for public-facing sites and internal applications, including contact channels for accessibility requests and remediation follow-up.
  • Participate in cross-functional sprint planning, grooming, and retrospective meetings to ensure accessibility requirements are included in ongoing work.
  • Contribute to procurement guidelines, RFP templates, and vendor accessibility questionnaires to minimize third-party accessibility risk.
  • Support ad-hoc research and pilot projects (e.g., AI-assisted captioning, automated remediation tools) to identify scalable accessibility solutions.
  • Create templates and patterns for accessible documentation, email communications, and internal knowledge base content.
  • Mentor junior accessibility champions and act as a liaison between design, engineering, and compliance teams to facilitate accessible product delivery.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Deep knowledge of WCAG 2.1/2.2 success criteria, ARIA Authoring Practices, Section 508, ADA digital accessibility implications, and accessibility legislation relevant to the organization.
  • Proficiency with accessibility testing tools and frameworks: axe (browser and CI integrations), WAVE, Lighthouse, Tenon, Pa11y, and browser devtools accessibility panels.
  • Hands-on experience testing with screen readers and assistive technologies: NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, TalkBack, and familiarity with keyboard-only navigation testing.
  • Strong web development understanding: semantic HTML5, CSS, responsive design, progressive enhancement, and modern JavaScript frameworks (React, Angular, Vue) with emphasis on accessible component patterns.
  • Experience implementing and reviewing ARIA roles, states, and properties and applying proper focus management for dynamic content and single-page applications.
  • Knowledge of accessible forms, error handling, labeling, and validation patterns including programmatic relationships and accessible autocomplete.
  • Familiarity with PDF accessibility standards (Tagged PDFs, reading order, semantic structure) and remediation techniques for documents and office formats.
  • Experience integrating accessibility checks into CI/CD pipelines, automated linting tools, unit and end-to-end test suites (Cypress, Selenium) for regression prevention.
  • Ability to author clear remediation guidance with code samples, CSS/JS fixes, and step-by-step instructions for developers and content authors.
  • Understanding multimedia accessibility: closed captions, subtitles, transcripts, audio description, and accessible media player implementation.
  • Skilled in producing accessibility reports, executive summaries, KPI dashboards, and compliance documentation for stakeholders and auditors.

Soft Skills

  • Strong communication skills: translate technical accessibility findings into business-impact language for product owners and executives.
  • Collaboration and influencing: work cross-functionally with design, engineering, content, legal, and support to embed accessibility across the organization.
  • Attention to detail and analytical thinking to identify subtle accessibility barriers and prioritize high-impact remediations.
  • Empathy and user-centered mindset when recruiting and conducting usability testing with people with disabilities.
  • Project and program management skills: prioritize, track, and drive remediation work across multiple teams and systems.
  • Training and coaching ability to upskill designers, developers, and content creators on accessibility best practices.
  • Problem-solving and creativity to propose pragmatic remediation strategies for complex legacy and third-party systems.
  • Adaptability to changing standards, tools, and legal landscapes related to accessibility.
  • Diplomacy and resilience when balancing product timelines with quality and compliance needs.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Information Technology, UX Design, Digital Media, or related field OR equivalent practical experience in accessibility, front-end development, UX, or QA.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in HCI, Accessibility, Computer Science, or related discipline with coursework or certification in accessibility standards and inclusive design.
  • Accessibility certifications such as IAAP CPACC/ WAS/ WAS-P or relevant vendor certifications.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
  • Computer Science / Software Engineering
  • UX Design / Interaction Design
  • Information Technology / Digital Media
  • Disability Studies or Inclusive Design programs

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–7 years of experience in accessibility, front-end development with accessibility focus, UX accessibility, or QA with accessibility responsibilities.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years of demonstrable experience delivering accessibility programs or embedded as an accessibility specialist within product teams.
  • Proven track record of performing accessibility audits, leading remediation efforts, integrating accessibility into CI/CD, and conducting assistive-technology usability testing.
  • Experience operating within regulated industries (government, healthcare, finance) or enterprise environments with complex legacy systems is a strong plus.
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