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Re: question about pdf documents

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From: Guy Hickling
Date: Dec 30, 2022 2:10PM

Here is one source of employment that no one seems to have mentioned so
far. Some web testing companies specialise specifically in providing
"disabled user testing" of websites. They provide teams of users with
various disabilities to test a website or app, usually for large companies,
government agencies, and other organisations that have the money to pay for
such testing. So, they will agree with the organisation on what testers the
client wants. For instance, a large company might want two blind screen
reader testers, a keyboard tester, someone with autism, someone with low
vision, and so on. I suspect some of these testing companies don't pay very
well, but others will no doubt pay reasonably. (For example, there is one
such company in Neath in Wales, with a whole room full of people with
various disabilities.) Very large companies may even employ disabled people
for particular testing roles.

Don't necessarily limit to looking for local work. In this post-Covid
world, lots of companies have realised they can have people working
entirely remotely - even with people in different countries (though a lot
of US countries are a bit snooty about that). One piece of advice I would
suggest, while you still have money left from your last job, is to make
sure you have all the devices (a good Windows desktop PC, a mobile device
(preferably both Apple and Galaxy Android or whatever is used in your
country), you need to work as a tester from home.

I strongly recommend, to anyone, that you learn the HTML and CSS solutions
for web accessibility issues, if you don't already. It puts you in a much
stronger position if you can tell the developers, not just what's wrong,
but also how to put it right (because web developers don't usually know the
accessible solutions which is why their stuff is inaccessible in the first
place, of course!) Also, when you can work with a sighted person you can
share the testing; they do the sighted bits while you do the screen reader
testing.

Another field of testing work is in disabled user testing of household
appliances - manufacturers are being forced by law to make sure their
appliances can be used by blind people and others. That's a hot topic in
Europe right now, due to new legislation requiring accessible household
appliances - though I haven't been following that so don't know much about
it. You don't say which country you are in but I expect there is similar
legislation there, either existing or coming in. (It's best when new
legislation is just coming in, because it builds a huge need but there are
few people in the field! - so plenty of scope for getting into the field.)

Finally, I also suggest adding a profile about yourself on LinkedIn,
describing the kind of screen reader testing you can do. A lot of companies
look on LinkedIn when they want employees for the more esoteric roles.