Shawn's Experience
Shawn has worked on the following projects over the last few years:
Accessibility and Training
- (current) Coordinate the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s worldwide education and outreach activities promoting Web accessibility for people with disabilities. Facilitate the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) as W3C Team contact, help coordinate the WAI Interest Group (WAI IG), and work with the WAI Steering Council.
- (current) Review and comment on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Working Drafts, and Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 Working Draft.
- (Volunteer) Co-instructed "Curb Cuts to Cyberspace" week-long workshop for DO-IT Scholars, a program to prepare high school students with disabilities for college and challenging careers.
- Assisted with planning and implementing company-wide accessibility initiative for an international computer-based training (CBT) and e-learning company. Conducted accessibility assessments and accessibility training workshops in Ireland, Canada, and the U.S. Developed templates for internal reporting on EITAS and WCAG compliance, as well as a process for regular third party audits and reporting. Monitored Section 508 activity and its impact on client business issues, including standards interpretation, status of competition, and procurement regulations and practices.
- Provided accessibility consulting to attorneys and their clients seeking accessible ATMs (automatic teller machines), web sites, and documentation under ADA.
- Completed initial accessibility assessments, followed by technical and non-technical accessibility workshops for a major U.S. bank. Provided consulting in developing accessible design solutions that lead to specific internal design guidelines. Served as mutually-agreed upon third-party consultant to provide semi-annual compliance reporting as part of legal agreement to meet accessibility requirements.
- Conducted accessibility evaluations of websites and web applications for various organizations including banks and a U.S. Federal government agency. Evaluated based on the Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards (EITAS) under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG) from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
- Customized web accessibility training program for the Internet services division of a major telecommunications company. Developed half-day Understanding and Planning Web Accessibility Workshop, designed for all team members involved in web design - including executives, project managers, technical writers, graphic designers, QA, and marketing - who do not know HTML; one-day Web Accessibility Workshop for Designers, designed for web designers and developers who are comfortable with basic HTML; and two-day Web Accessibility Workshop for Developers, designed for web designers and developers know HTML, which covered more topics in more detail, such as style sheets (CSS) and multimedia. Included redesign exercises from current website.
- Developed and conducted 2-day Designing Web and Windows Applications for Accessibility Workshop for major software company with the following workshop objectives:
- Understand how functional and situational limitations affect computer use. Experience web and Windows user interface interaction using screening techniques for various limitations.
- Understand the benefits of designing accessible web pages, including the legal, social, and organizational impetus for web accessibility.
- Understand the context of applicable guidelines and standards. Use the Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards (EITAS) under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, and guidelines from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
- Know the relationship between usability and accessibility. Know how to incorporate accessibility into existing user interface design processes and usability practices.
- Understand the problems, solutions, and benefits to specific accessibility issues as listed in the outline. Practice identifying accessibility problems, develop strategies and possible solutions for overcoming problems, and evaluate and test solution options.
- Practice tools and techniques for evaluating accessibility of web and Windows interfaces.
- Know where to get more information.
- Assisted a national library association in providing customer-centered usability of affiliated web sites and encouraging application of the principles of universal design. Reviewed sampling of sites for accessibility and usability. Developed and conducted 1/2-day and 2-day web accessibility workshops. Provided follow-up consulting to assist with accessibility implementation.
- Developed and led accessibility workshop for regional utility company to meet specific diversity training requirements.
- Developed and conducted a one-day course on web standards for developers of a national insurance company.
- Developed and taught a three-day workshop, The Process of User Interface Design. Several companies adopted this class as their standard for in-house design process training, including a Fortune 500 insurance company.
Usability
- (current) Assist with user-centered design of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Working Draft documents.
- Led complete redesign of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) website: www.w3.org/WAI/ Coordinated external project team through a used-centered design process, site development, and deployment. Demonstrated significant improvement over the previous design through usability testing. Edited the WAI Web Site Redesign Project document ion, which is publicly available online.
- Developed comprehensive customized GUI design standards for a national apparel retailer. Reviewed existing applications and worked with primary contact and seven-person GUI review team to define company standards. Delivered final standards in HTML for intranet deployment.
- Member of 9-person team that conducted design prototyping, focus groups, field studies, and extensive usability testing for a major medical systems provider's site. The site provides users with sales and customer service content, such as new products, parts, service contracts, and technical support. Concerns addressed and explored included definition and sensitivity to specific demographic groups, and forming recommendations around the understanding of those groups. Testing on over 75 pages of paper prototypes provided invaluable information in guiding further development of site prototypes.
- Evaluated an automobile-configuration/purchasing web site for a major auto manufacturer. The evaluation included competitive analysis, a written report, and a presentation of results to the auto manufacturer's management staff.
- Managed content development of a comprehensive HTML and Windows online help system for the Software Product Development group of a national insurance company. Included documentation on usability testing lab procedures, human factors principles, project structure, visual design techniques, user-centered design methodology, and design standards.
- Conducted local and national usability testing sessions for a non-profit organization that leads the development of technical standards. Tested both the public sections and the members' sections, focusing on navigation, public image, and conversion to membership. Provided specific recommendation about information architecture, including use of menus, links, and workflow.
- Developed web design style guide for a utility company's intranet and Internet sites. Covered the development process, sub-site design, navigation, page layout, graphics, color, forms, language and HTML coding.
- Led usability testing team for an employee expense account application. Conducted usability tests on paper prototypes and online prototypes.
- Worked with a major utility over five years to establish a process for incorporating usability into development projects. Developed comprehensive online standards for developers, developed and delivered multiple training courses on usability techniques, and worked with individual projects to perform customer/task analysis and develop prototypes. The client progressed from having no usability or user interface design processes to having established, successful processes supported by training, standards, and templates.
- Assisted a large national non-profit disability organization in re-designing its web site for e-commerce, by performing a heuristic usability assessment and usability test with recommendations. The site includes a large knowledge base of support resources (such as articles) and community oriented services.
- Designed the GUI for two Windows instrument control software packages programmed in C as a member of a three-person team.
- Designed, wrote, edited, implemented, and maintained an integrated GUI design and programming standards project in two-person team. The GUI Design Standards covered Windows applications, independent of the development tool. Included both Windows generic and company-specific guidelines. Contained 600 help panels in topic and guideline format, customized navigation, specific examples, and detailed application pre-design and GUI review checklists. Continued on with organization part-time to integrate standards into the application development process. Updated standards for Window NT user interface.
Technical Writing
- Planned, researched, designed, wrote, edited:
- technical documents - software user manuals, on-line help, and scientific papers,
- marketing communications - press releases, annual reports, brochures, and web sites,
- articles for public relations newsletters, which included extensive phone interviews,
- scientific and technical articles for general audience newspaper,
- grant proposals for nonprofit organization.