Hello! I’m Sharyn.
I’m a passionate accessibility evangelist with over eight years of experience in accessibility consulting, design, manual and automated testing, and remediation. I’m a results-driven lifelong learner with a strong knowledge of WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 (and getting to know the newly released WCAG 2.2 success criteria). I am energized by helping others get the most out of digital experiences with minimal frustration using empathy, joy, organization, analysis, and collaboration.
In 2022, I earned my IAAP Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) and am studying to take the Web Accessibility Specialist (WAS) exam. I am a high-energy lifelong learner and late-identified autistic with ADHD.
Specialties: Organizing chaos with process improvements. Partial to Agile practices for SDLC. Uncovering problems faced by end-users. Working with distributed design and development teams to solve them. End-user support, training, mentoring, content creation and management, accessibility consulting, troubleshooting, defect documentation and tracking, and photography. I am a proponent of collaboration and inclusion, and raising awareness about ableism.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
iCIMS
Holmdel, New Jersey (remote)
April 2022 – present
Principal Accessibility Engineer
- Accessibility training of iCIMS employees and building a base of accessibility champions
- Customer requests and accessibility audits
- Internal accessibility audits
- Vendor management
- Acquisition integration
- Research and overhead
- Team support
Accomplishments: Upgraded organization to axe DevTools Enterprise. Expanded external accessibility audits & VPATs to cover more products. Created accessibility 100 curriculum for all onboarding employees, expanded monthly accessibility Community of Practice meeting and GAAD events to include the entire company.
U.S. Bank
Minneapolis, MN
July 2021 — April 2022
Assistant Vice President, Principal UX Accessibility Consultant
Shifting accessibility left as a key stakeholder during the design, prototyping, and defect analysis processes for digital products. This includes creating and validating accessibility user stories, evaluating prototypes, reviewing designs and wireframes, providing technical direction, and creating materials to educate others about accessibility. Partnering with business lines to ensure the user experience presented to consumers is accessible and meets bank standards. As well as interviewing potential candidates, onboarding new teammates, and coaching junior colleagues.
Minneapolis Community and Technical College
Minneapolis, MN
January 2019 — present
Adjunct Instructor (part-time)
Teaching Continuing Education courses in the Web Design and Development Certificate program:
- Introductory HTML and CSS 1 & 2
- Front-End Website Design
- Javascript for the Web
Siteimprove
Bloomington, MN
February 2015 — July 2021
Senior Accessibility Analyst, Senior Technical Support Engineer & Product Champion
As a Senior Accessibility Analyst, I performed manual testing of web pages and mobile apps. By partnering closely with Siteimprove Customer Success Managers, Technical Support Engineers, and sales teams I ensured our customers’ needs were understood. Customers were provided with thorough, accurate, and useful documentation. This included accessibility evaluations, explanations of best practices, and remediation recommendations. As a Technical Support Engineer and Product Champion, I advocated on behalf of Siteimprove Platform end-users. I collaborated with Product Owners and Developers around defects, feature enhancements, releases and release notes, and product roadmaps.
Clockwork Active Media Systems
Minneapolis, MN
March 2005 — February 2015
Systems Administrator, Support Specialist, Front End Developer, QA Tester, Corporate Photographer
Responsibilities included:
- Front-end web development;
- Quality assurance testing;
- Technical support and client messaging during incident management;
- Domain and SSL certificate management;
- New employee & end-user onboarding and training;
- Writing detailed but easy-to-understand documentation;
- Working closely with vendors: Qualys, GoogleApps, DigiCert, TuCows/OpenSRS;
- Corporate photography: employee headshots, client photography, events.
Fallon Inc
Minneapolis, MN
August 2000 — August 2003
Front End Web Developer
- Involved in the entire life cycle of a website, from planning to implementation and maintenance
- Carried out production work in Photoshop and Flash
- Built web sites in HTML & CSS
- Updated content for large scale websites
- Maintained files in version control software
SKILLS
- WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and Section 508
- HTML, CSS, JavaScript
- Agile ways of working
- Manual & automated A11Y testing
- Prototyping
- Design systems
- Teaching, mentoring
- Relationship management
- Process improvement
- Technical documentation
- Knowledge sharing
- Defect tracking
- User account management and user onboarding
- Professional photography and image production (Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, etc.)
TOOLS
- Assistive Technologies: JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, TalkBack
- WAVE
- axe Devtools, Auditor, and Monitor
- Accessibility Insights (AI)
- Siteimprove SaaS Platform
- Text editors
- Developer tools
- Content Management Systems
- Version control
- Jira, Confluence, Trello
- Prototyping tools: Figma, InVision
- Adobe Creative Suite
- Microsoft Office 365
CERTIFICATES AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
- IAAP Certification: CPACC, March 2022 (studying for WAS next)
- Minneapolis College: Teaching & auditing classes
- University of MN: Agile Certificate, 2018
- O’Reilly School of Technology: Linux Systems Administration
- College of St. Catherine: Information Technology, weekend college
- Science Museum Computer Education Center: Web development coursework
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
- Mentor: Accessibility NextGen Program
- Photographer: Family Tree Clinic, Planned Parenthood, Mizna Arab Arts Organization, and Tech Dump MN
- Co-founder and former board member: Compassionate Action for Animals
- Event volunteer: Asian Media Access, Compassionate Action for Animals
- Amnesty International volunteer