The Planning Inspectorate

Interaction Designer

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Department for Education

Ministry of Justice UK

HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS)

Sage

UX Designer

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)

Frontend Developer/Interaction Designer

KIDLY

Financial Times

JUST EAT

UX Prototyper

I’m an interaction designer and a GDS trained design assessor. I have good knowledge of the GOV.UK Service Manual, GOV.UK Design System, GOV.UK Frontend and GOV.UK Style Guide.

Here’s my story:

When I was 16 years old, I wanted to design logos and websites.

I had an eye for design, but lacked the practical skill to do it. So I ended up going into frontend development which was more technical.

But most of the designers I worked with gave me complicated and inaccessible designs to implement.

Sometimes I’d suggest changes to simplify the design and improve accessibility. But no matter how solid my rationale or how simple my solution, I couldn’t convince the designers to make changes.

I felt frustrated having to go back to my desk to implement designs which were harder to build, inaccessible and slow to load.

As a result, I started to believe that designers only cared about aesthetics.

In 2014, my wife and I had our home renovated just in time for the arrival of our first baby. But three weeks into a new six-month contract, I was let go. I’d never had so much responsibility and so little money.

But I got a new contract as a UX prototyper at Just Eat, the UK’s leading takeaway delivery service.

Prior to this role I wasn’t part of the design process. So by the time designs were given to me to implement, it always felt too late to give feedback and suggest changes.

But at Just Eat I was embedded in the design team where I could influence solutions from the start.

To my surprise, the designers there weren’t just focused on aesthetics; they cared about UX. We did user research, ran A/B tests and tracked performance.

I worked closely with Mark Jenkins, the lead designer. But he wasn’t like the other designers I had worked with before. He listened to what I had to say and valued it. He advocated for doing the most basic thing, doing it quickly and learning. He didn’t fuss over pixels.

Most importantly, he showed me that, not only was it possible to be a designer like this but that it was better to be a designer like this.

For example, we redesigned the checkout journey by using the most basic and accessible solution. The result was an increased conversion of 5% – 37,000 orders a week.

Mark also encouraged me to start a blog. And 2 of my early posts went viral on Hacker News (multiple times over).

I realised I wasn’t alone and that others resonated with my design philosophy.

Now I’m trying to be the designer I wish I got to work with when I was a dev.

You can find links to my newsletter and courses below ↓

Adam Silver

Github’s Design System now bans toast messages.

In case you don’t know, toast messages are little messages shown on top of the UI to give feedback about an action that you’ve just taken.

Banning toast messages is an excellent decision because they have bad UX and are terrible for accessibility.

Here’s a few reasons why:

(1) They disappear automatically after a few seconds (at best this is stressful, at worst you’ll miss it)

(2) They obscure the content underneath which is frustrating and slows users down.

(3) They’re hard to spot because they’re small and shown at the edge of the screen.

And there are plenty of other issues which I’ll link to below if you’re keen.

Let’s hope Github bans tooltips next.

Designer with engineering background | I talk about designing products that are ridiculously simple and accessible to use.

Webpage titled "Toasts" explaining that GitHub no longer uses toast notifications due to accessibility and usability concerns, with an overview and recommendation to avoid them.

Kae Anderson, CPACC

The Reserves Network

I'm doing a contract for Houston Community College to help make their websites more inclusive and accessible. I work with a small team of accessibility specialists to do accessibility testing on the school's websites.

- Moving the college toward the goal of accessible websites by testing and auditing 30 sites with JAWS, NVDA, WAVE, ARC Toolkit, SortSite, WebAIM Color Contrast Checker, ZoomText, and accessibility bookmarklet tools
- Tracking results by documenting findings in Smartsheet using a modified VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) / ACR (Accessibility Conformance Report)
- Guiding more than 100 HCC staff members toward accessible content creation by building live and on demand training curriculum and educating staff on Title II, Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 AA web accessibility standards
- Improving access to PDFs by testing documents and documenting issues
- Providing HCC’s legal team with accurate information by assembling reports for tested sites
- Maintaining long-term accessibility practices by setting up automated scans in ARC Monitor
- Ensuring accessible outreach for current, future, and former students by creating a testing matrix for HCC’s social media sites and testing 15 of the school’s social media accounts
- Improving communication by identifying possible misunderstandings and using clear language
- Prioritizing multiple assignments and navigating quick turn around times responsibly
- Collaborating with fellow accessibility specialists and stakeholders in Microsoft Teams and SharePoint

Digital Accessibility Specialist

Freelance

I’m an inclusive design consultant, and my job is to help you make your site work well for as many people as possible. I'm available for freelance and contract roles, and I'm available for relocation to the UK and Europe.

What do I do? I work with a wide range of people and companies to review what's there and add in accessibility and inclusivity.

Most of my work is with two different groups:

1. Designers and design teams
- I help designers learn about inclusive design through education and enthusiasm
- I review wireframes and find ways to make things more accessible (most accessibility issues start in the design phase)
- I work with cross-functional teams to help the hand-off process go smoothly so that devs know what the design intent is

2. Entrepreneurs and small business owners who have their own site
- I review websites to find accessibility issues that could be blockers for people
- I help find ways to make things more inclusive
- And I bring an external perspective, so I can share what someone might experience when they come to your site for the first time

Things I can help you with:
- form design
- user flows
- content design and UX writing
- accessible design systems
- brand colors
- AI accessibility
- CTA text
- native mobile accessibility for apps

I have availability for more clients - message me for more info (feel free to connect if we aren't already)!

This is Inclusive Design

I joined an inclusive design consultancy where we're focused on helping companies increase the accessibility and inclusivity of their sites.

Freelance Inclusive Designer 

Your company's name can be here!

My previous contract ended (CVS laid off more than 5,000 people and I was one of them) and I'm available for a new role! 

+ I have 5 years of experience in digital accessibility at Fortune 100 companies 
+ I've worked in a remediation role (finding and fixing existing issues) and a preventative role (working with designers and content specialists to build inclusivity in from the wireframe stage)
+ I love helping technology professionals understand the impacts of the things they create
+ I'm open to lots of different types of roles: contract, contract to hire, direct hire, and freelance positions are all fine
+ I have experience with accessible design, inclusive content, wireframe and code reviews, creating documentation, WCAG standards, and document remediation

Ready for a new Digital Accessibility Specialist position

Onward Select

I contracted with CVS Health, a leading health solutions company in the US, and I worked with a group of designers, design managers, and content specialists to create inclusive designs. My role was to help prevent accessibility issues (redoing code can increase the cost by 10x). I was on the Account team, which was focused on improving log in, sign up, onboarding, password reset, and the account landing page for millions of CVS's customers. 

+ Increased the inclusivity of vital site pages by collaborating with multiple design teams as they created and updated their designs in Figma
+ Caught potential issues before they ended up live on the CVS website, and worked with designers to find options to improve inclusivity
+ Introduced accessibility information to designers and developers gently and with enthusiasm, which won over people who were previously not familiar with or not interested in it
+ Identified places (like help text, headings, and CTAs) where words matter most, and worked with content specialists to communicate in a clear and straightforward way
+ Created accessibility annotations to help developers understand how to turn the designs into code, and to help accessibility testers confirm that the designs were implemented correctly
+ Worked with accessibility engineers, developers, and designers to fix more than 100 existing accessibility defects
+ Implemented documentation to keep track of accessibility defects, which helped find patterns and training opportunities over time
+ Started learning about app accessibility

Accessibility Designer

HealthTrust Workforce Solutions

Started a different contract in the same role, and worked to improve website accessibility at HCA Healthcare by joining the newly formed Digital Accessibility and Compliance department. HCA Healthcare had more than 800 websites.

+ Served as an accessibility subject matter expert for teams by answering questions and determining where additional training is needed
+ Worked with developers to help prevent accessibility issues on sites as they were built and updated
+ Performed QA checks on new site builds
+ Tested and reviewed third party products (using NVDA, manual keyboard testing, and color contrast checks) before they were added or embedded, and provided feedback to the vendor if they weren't ready to add
+ Used Axe Monitor and Siteimprove to run regular automated checks on websites and fixed issues that come up as sites were changed

Robert Half

As the internet becomes a necessary part of our lives it's growing increasingly necessary to have accessible websites. I worked on a remediation project with HCA Healthcare's Web Shared Services team to ensure that their division, facility, and specialty websites are accessible and inclusive for all users. 

+ Performed document checks and remediated PDFs to make sure they had appropriate tags
+ Created new web pages using HTML and Bootstrap to replace inaccessible PDFs
+ Added caption files to videos on YouTube
+ Found broken links and misspellings and corrected them
+ Audited images to make sure they had appropriate alt tags and made updates when they didn't
+ Trained new members of the accessibility team
+ Wrote, updated, and edited instructional documentation and resources

+ Used my knowledge base to be useful and productive on the first day of a new role
+ Worked on a major WordPress content migration project by moving posts and performing QA

WordPress Contractor

Springboard

I completed a UX design program at Springboard, an e-learning platform. Springboard has a curated curriculum made up of the best UX content from around the internet. As part of the certification process I completed a capstone project, which you can read about it on my site (kaeanderson.com/work/reika.html) or see the PDF below.

UX Design Student

Kaizening

Gained marketing, design, and SEO experience by working with a startup lifestyle/self improvement blog.

+Improved email subscriber count by 30% by redesigning CTAs for visual design and accessibility
+Updated the UX design of a lifestyle blog’s WordPress site
+Learned how to use Google Analytics and Yoast SEO to increase traffic to the company’s site

Marketing & UX Design Intern

Axcess Coaching

Learned about WordPress development by working with a startup that helps junior high and high school athletes train more effectively.

+ Worked with a development team to create Axcess Coaching's site
+ Learned how to manipulate themes and use Visual Composer
+ Made and updated pages on the WordPress site

WordPress Development Intern

Hi, I'm Kae! I've always been curious about people (that's why I have a degree in anthropology!) and I love the internet. I made my first website on Angelfire when I was 14 - it was an *N Sync fan site with a glittery banner and a guestbook. Now I'm using my ability to empathize with people to create positive digital experiences that everyone can use.

A few years ago I was working at a healthcare company, and part of my job was answering calls and emails on a helpdesk. I spent part of each day helping people understand a third-party software system. Training them saved us millions of dollars in potential lost revenue (it was too easy to push the wrong button and send things into the abyss), but it also meant I wasn't doing the rest of my work. 

That experience made me realize I want to create products that people don't have to contact a helpdesk to use, and I decided to learn more about building websites. In 2017 I went to The Iron Yard for front-end development. But it turns out devs don't have to make a site work well, they just have to make it work technically. So in the spring of 2018 I did a UX design program through Springboard. 

After finishing the program I looked for a UX role and ended up finding an accessibility position instead, which turned out to be the perfect fit. Now I get to focus on making digital products that are usable by whoever wants to use them.

I love working on the design side of accessibility. That can be with a creative solo entrepreneur who has their own website, or with a design team at a big company. Most accessibility issues can be fixed in the design, and it's where the ideas and opportunities are. 

I'm looking for a new role, and I'd really like to keep working in this field!

If you're curious about who I am as a person here's some info for you! 
- I love traveling (I've been to 27 countries - the Scottish Highlands, Prague, and Buenos Aires are my favorite places so far)
- I like reading (I own more than 900 books), watching cozy TV shows (I love The Repair Shop and Home Town), and the Oxford comma
- I'm an INFP, Enneagram 4w5, Adobe Thinker, and Sparketype Essentialist - I love learning about an issue, organizing the data, and getting excited about how we can make things better

You can check out my portfolio at kaeanderson.com, and feel free to reach out and say hello!

(The opinions I share on LinkedIn are my own and not affiliated with any company.)

Accessibility Specialist

Hello! I’m back with resources for accessible data visualization! Making things like charts and graphs accessible can be a little intimidating. There are lots of things to think about, like color contrast, keyboard access, and text descriptions. 

These resources will help you figure out how to make your data accessible!

Articles
- Beyond Basic Alt Text – Charts, Maps, and Diagrams from Equidox PDF Accessibility Solutions - 
https://lnkd.in/eV48KyA7 

- Chart accessibility best practices by Denis Kryukov - https://lnkd.in/eqQqB3_k 

- Create Accessible Data Visualizations from UMass Boston - https://lnkd.in/e_hF_5RB 

- Data visualisation: charts from the Scottish Government Design System - https://lnkd.in/epbT5zCf 

- Data visualizations from the USWDS - https://lnkd.in/eCBwJXtx 

- Designing a more accessible flood map by Dan Leech - https://lnkd.in/eyu6-ubD 

- New software enables blind and low-vision users to create interactive, accessible charts from MIT - https://lnkd.in/e5UaJia2 

- Writing Alt Text for Data Visualization by Amy Cesal - https://lnkd.in/eVSHyJjt


Sites

- Chartability - https://lnkd.in/eNi8h2qU 


Videos (all are on YouTube)

- Accessibility Fireside Chat from Data Visualization Society (57 minutes) - https://lnkd.in/eKSvZb7h 

- Accessible data visualizations (charts and graphs) from Pope Tech (8 minutes) - https://lnkd.in/ehTZD685 

- Accessible Data Visualization for Screen Reader Users by Jonathan Zong, PhD (49 minutes) - https://lnkd.in/euU4rjZB 

- Accessible Data Visualizations 101 by Sarah Fossheim (51 minutes) - https://lnkd.in/eVP9nveu


Small changes can make a big difference here. If you have other resources we should know about then please share them with us in the comments!

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Open video: Accessible Data Visualizations 101 - axe-con 2021 on youtube.com

Accessible Data Visualizations 101 - axe-con 2021

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Kae Anderson, CPACC

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