Championing Digital Inclusion in Accessibility

I’m deeply devoted to helping create equitable experiences for all users.

Growing up with severe low vision, I have a lot of experience advocating for what I need in every setting. Unfortunately, not everyone can advocate for themselves, and disabled perspectives are rarely sought out, leaving us excluded. I truly believe that accessibility drives innovation, and I hope to seek out disability perspectives both now and in the future as a hopeful accessibility-focused researcher.

Accessibility Advising

I’ve had the pleasure of working in the accessibility field in a variety of capacities since 2018. In my role as an Accessibility Advisor at JPMorgan Chase, I work with all levels of product teams that create customer-facing features for small business owners on both Chase’s web and mobile platforms. Some of my primary responsibilities include:

• Performing wireframe reviews and providing accessibility and usability recommendations like how to structure a form flow or a table so the design is understandable for blind screen reader users, users with low vision using full-screen magnification, users with cognitive disabilities, and more.
• Assisting in creating accessibility specs for designs, including page heading structure, keyboard tabbing order, screen reader text for UI and images, and when to create dynamic status messages to alert a screen reader user when a change has taken place onscreen.
• Troubleshooting code to fix accessibility defects or properly implement accessibility functionality, hands-on with the developer
• Reviewing possible defects with accessibility testers to confirm whether an issue is a true WCAG defect, and revising defects to recategorize if necessary
• Hosting office hours twice weekly, an open forum where designers, developers, testers, and product owners from my assigned product groups can come and ask accessibility-related questions
• Reinforcing the JPMC accessibility governance process to ensure accessibility defects are closed in a timely manner and that any UI work has accessibility design specs, screen reader content, and accessibility testing work done.

Current & Future Opportunities

Some current and future opportunities I’m exploring in my role include:

• Working with JPMC’s Branch Innovation team to research accessibility solutions in both built and digital applications for branch customers
• Engaging research teams on products I work with to thoughtfully include people with disabilities in user research

Annotated Wireframes

As part of a course in Accessibility and Universal Design for my MS in UXD, I created my own annotated wireframes to showcase the depth of thought involved from the design phase.

Accessibility Testing

I started my career as an Accessibility Tester where I evaluated web and native mobile products against WCAG 2.1 guidelines. I performed both automated and manual testing, using tools like:

• automated tools: Axe & WAVE
• screen readers: VoiceOver (iOS & desktop), NVDA, and Android Talkback
• color contrast
• keyboard testing on desktop and mobile
• Spanish-language screen reader testing