Curriculum Vitae James Jacobs - Accessibility Lead

  • 07595 166 764
  • hello@jamesjacobs.me

About me

Hello, my name is James. I'm the Accessibility Lead at Jadu, a company that creates accessible websites used by millions of people and a web software platform that powers local authorities and higher education organisations worldwide.

As accessibility lead, I work autonomously across the organisation, conducting accessibility reviews, identifying issues, advising designers, developers, testers and customers on accessibility issues, providing training, fixing issues and much more.

I've worked on the web for 20 years in various roles, primarily as a front-end developer passionate about accessibility. After years of being the "unofficial accessibility guy", in 2021, I moved into a dedicated accessibility role and have enjoyed every minute of it.

Outside of work, when I'm not spending time with my wife and two daughters, I enjoy reading sci-fi, powerlifting and tabletop miniature games.

Skills and relevant qualifications

  • IAAP (International Association of Accessibility Professionals) Certified Web Accessibility Specialist
  • 20 years of working on the web in a front-end role
  • Detailed knowledge of HTML, CSS, WAI-ARIA, JavaScript and browser developer tools
  • Thorough knowledge of accessibility guidelines, standards and regulations, such as WCAG, PSBAR (Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations), EN 301 549 and Section 508
  • Experience using various accessibility tools, such as AXE, IBM Equal Access, Accessibility Insights, Site Improve, Silkttide, Colour contrast analyser and various bookmarklets.
  • Experience using screen readers, such as Voiceover, NVDA and JAWS.
  • Knowledge of automated accessibility testing with tools such as Cypress and AXE-Core

Employment

Jadu Accessibility Lead ( - Present)

I currently work as the Accessibility lead for Jadu, a global provider of accessible websites and accessible "low code" web experience management software. Jadu designs and develops accessible websites for local authorities and higher education. Alongside creating large-scale websites, Jadu develops several products that comprise the Jadu platform. These include Jadu Central (a powerful enterprise-grade content management system and form builder solution), Jadu Connect (a customer experience management system or CRM) and Jadu Content Portal (a document management portal solution). Together, these products make up the Jadu web platform.

Most of our customers are subject to PSBAR or Section 508; therefore, the websites we create and the software UIs that power them must meet WCAG 2.1 (and soon 2.2) Level AA at a minimum. We view WCAG as the minimum acceptable baseline and strive to take the accessibility of our websites and products beyond WCAG.

I oversee the accessibility of the websites we create for customers and our product UIs. I work collaboratively with our creative team, a digital agency that creates large-scale websites for our customers, and our product engineering team, who develop the Jadu platform.

My creative team responsibilities:

  • Accessibility assessments of designs, HTML prototypes and UAT stage sites
  • Advising and collaborating with designers, developers and testers on accessibility issues and related fixes from both a WCAG and best practice point of view
  • Testing using screen readers (Voiceover, NVDA and JAWS) and speech recognition tools (Dragon)
  • Design system accessibility engineering and testing
  • Advising clients on accessibility issues related to WCAG guidelines and best practices via tickets raised through our support service
  • Creating content for and delivering accessibility training to customers. Sessions include "Introduction to Accessibility", "Accessibility for Developers", "Accessibility for Content Creators", and "PDF Accessibility"
  • Accessibility audits of customer websites, documenting and reporting WCAG and best practice issues found, along with remediation advice
  • Advising customers following external audits from the GDS monitoring team, or other external organisations such as the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) or Shaw Trust

My engineering team responsibilities:

  • Conducting comprehensive accessibility audits of product UIs, components and design systems elements
  • Reporting on issues found during tests, advising developers of relevant remediation steps
  • Remediation of identified accessibility issues using HTML, CSS/SASS, ARIA and JS (a mix of jQuery, vanilla JS and some React)
  • Advising product owners, designers and developers on potential issues with proposed feature UI designs
  • Advising testers/QA on accessibility issues
  • Provision of internal accessibility training to User Experience designers, front-end developers and QA/testers
  • Advising product owners planning roadmap features and fixes
  • Creation of VPAT/ACR following product audits

My company-wide responsibilities:

  • Maintenance of the "Jadu accessibility guidelines", an internal resource that contains guides, checklists, and UI pattern examples used by our designers, developers, testers and marketing team
  • Running a monthly "Jadu Accessibility Champions" open session where "champions" from each team receive training on a chosen topic and discuss any issues that have arisen
  • Reviewing and updating internal testing procedures
  • Advising the sales and customer experience team on accessibility-related topics
  • Assisting the marketing team with accessibility-related content and advice
  • Attending company conferences and events
  • Attending accessibility partnership meetings (Silktide, AbilityNet, Hassell Inclusion)

Jadu Senior UI Developer ( - )

As a senior UI developer, I was responsible for designing and developing the user interfaces of the Jadu software platform, designed for and used by the government and higher education sectors. As an accessibility advocate, I quickly became the company's unofficial accessibility person, which eventually led to a dedicated role.

I worked within our fast-paced, agile-based software engineering team, where I was primarily involved in:

  • Development of our Pulsar design system, which powers the UI of our software
  • Front-end development of our CRM/Case management product, Jadu Connect
  • User interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design
  • Concept and prototype design (sketch work, user journeys and wireframing)
  • Performing accessibility audits of product UIs and fixing issues to a minimum standard of WCAG 2.1 level AA
  • Performing accessibility audits and running internal accessibility workshops
  • Screen reader testing (Voiceover & NVDA)
  • Providing accessibility guidance to team members
  • Running internal accessibility workshops and training
  • Visiting clients, speaking to users, gaining feedback and requirements on new and existing features, identifying pain points and potential improvements
  • Gathering feedback from users with disabilities

Day to day, I built new features, worked on our design system or fixed issues using:

  • Semantic HTML5 + ARIA
  • BEM based SCSS/CSS
  • Module-based ES6 Javascript and jQuery
  • Twig
  • Writing JS tests using Mocha, Chai and SinonJS
  • Mobile-first responsive design
  • Jira, Git (Tower) and Slack

Eclipse Legal Systems Web developer ( - )

I was solely responsible for designing and developing the majority of Eclipse's internal and external web properties. This included the main corporate site, client portal and various other internal web applications (Intranet, knowledge base and staff expense tracker).

Eclipse was the UK's leading supplier of case management software to the legal industry at the time. I worked within the marketing team, and my role consisted of:

  • Front-end end development (HTML5, CSS3, LESS and Javascript)
  • Back-end development (Both procedural and OO PHP)
  • WordPress theme and plugin development
  • Training and development of junior developers