WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: question about pdf documents

for

From: Laura Roberts
Date: Dec 27, 2022 9:22AM

I'm sorry to hear that.

I think your best bet is sending your CV to companies that specialize in
accessibility, or large companies that have teams of accessibility
specialists, and don't forget to check the federal government jobs. They'll
be the most likely to provide accommodations to you and use your skills.
Since you are blind, there would definitely be some obstacles to
remediating documents (mainly figuring out what the images/tables/etc are
trying to convey), but if you were part of a team, that shouldn't be an
issue, in my opinion anyway.

I think your greatest asset is testing documents and websites with
assistive technology. Most of us remediators know the bare minimum to do
basic testing. It takes a very long time to know all the intricacies of
JAWS, NVDA, and other screen readers, not to mention the assistive tech for
zooming, color contrast, etc.

If you apply at companies that are looking for a jack-of-all-trades
accessibility specialist -- frankly they want too much from any one person,
and I don't think you'll have much luck with them. (That's a pet peeve of
mine - a WCAG programmer, a document remediator and an assistive tech
tester are three different jobs!!!)

Your other option is creating profiles on the freelancing sites (Upwork,
Fiverr, etc) as a QA tester for accessibility. It's at least something you
could do while you are searching for a new job.

Hope that was helpful.
Laura

On Mon, Dec 26, 2022 at 10:42 AM Nathan Clark < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Dear list,
>
> Sorry if the topic has been discussed at severe length in the past.
>
> I just got let go by my company last monday as their top accessibility
> tester due to lack of work for me to do at the company (now I am back
> in the job market.) I am completely blind and have been a native
> screen reader user for 22 years or so now. A lot of these job
> descriptions by these companies are asking for experience with being
> able to be able to remediate PDF documents for accessibility purposes.
> How as a blind person can I do such a thing when companies want me to
> take a document that I can't read or test and make it accessible?
> Sorry if it sounds like I am complaining but how do these companies
> expect blind testers to work at their companies but also ask them to
> fix inaccessible documents? Am I missing something or something wrong
> with these companies. Thanks
>
> If anyone is looking for accessibility testers at their company please
> let me know and would love to send my resume to them.
> Sincerely,
> Nathan Clark
> > > > >


--
Best regards,
Laura Roberts
413-588-8422