Accessibility Impact

Accessibility Subject Matter Expert | 2020-2025

Overview

As the designated Accessibility SME at Interfolio, I led initiatives to improve digital accessibility across our product. I worked cross-functionally with product teams, designers, engineers, and clients to ensure inclusive, WCAG-compliant user experiences. My role blended consultation with hands-on execution to create meaningful improvements.

The product team at Interfolio faced a growing emphasis on building compliant features and the need to integrate accessibility into their workflows. Knowledge gaps, inconsistent practices, and a lack of infrastructure made it difficult to identify, prioritize, and resolve accessibility issues.

My Role
Expert in Accessibility

Certification
DHS Section 508 Trusted Tester
Issued September 2021

Tools Used
axe DevTools
Wave Extension
PopeTech
Stark for Figma
ANDI

My Introduction to Accessibility

My journey with accessibility began in the most personal of ways: through my sister’s daily experiences. My sister is nonverbal. Growing up she used a communication board and some basic sign language. A communication board is essentially a set of images she could point to to communicate something, such as wanting a drink. Long before I understood web design, I watched her navigate a world not always built with her needs in mind. Growing up before the age of Google, I never imagined this personal experience would spark my interest in web accessibility.

While pursuing my graphic design degree at SUNY Oswego, I was fortunate enough to have a web design professor who was passionate about and well-versed in accessibility. She introduced her classes to assistive technology and the importance of accessible web content right from the beginning. Under her guidance, we learned to build our simple starter websites with accessibility in mind. We even received hands-on experience with assistive technology (AT). This and my personal experience profoundly impacted my understanding of how different people interact with technology, shaping my understanding of and passion for the field.

Design can be beautiful, design can be functional. But let’s strive for design to be inclusive.

My Approach

Establish Myself as an Expert & a Resource

When establishing yourself as an expert in a niche field such as accessibility, it's essential that you remain open and willing to share your knowledge. Throughout my tenure at Interfolio, I have welcomed questions and provided advice on numerous accessibility issues, whether it be via Slack or answering client questions that come to our accessibility email.

Review and interpret client-provided accessibility audits.
Assist product in prioritizing compliance issues and initial scope of work; including translating these items into Jira initiatives and tickets.
Clarifying WCAG guidelines (translation of jargon).
Advising on inclusive design practices.

VPAT (ACR) Creation

I worked closely with our broader accessibility team, identifying the key areas of our product to include in the VPAT audit. Once the VPAT (ACR) was completed, I worked alongside product to identify actionable solutions to any areas that did not pass standards. Created a repository of all our product ACR's and remained in contact with the accessibility team to ensure regular ACR's are completed.

Strengthen client trust and compliance readiness with up-to-date VPATs.

Design System Accessibility

Ensured our design system was accessible by design. Reviewed components and added accessibility documentation for engineers and designers. Considered keyboard navigation, contrast, and screen reader compatability in the design and build of components and patterns.

Help Site Improvements

Directly edited the HTML and CSS in the content management system used for our help site. Fixed a multitude of issues identified by PopeTech and Wave.

84% reduction in accessibility issues over the course of 1 month.
Established quarterly reports run in PopeTech to monitor the accessibility of our Help Site and quickly identify any new issues or regressions.

Accessibility Champions Program

Led an accessibility champion program to scale and share accessibility knowledge across the organization. The program consisted of UX, product, engineering and QA and included training and metrics for each team.