Web Accessibility Consultant

The Tennessee Department of Children's Services (DCS) is seeking a Web Accessibility Consultant to create, remediate, test, and maintain accessible electronic documents and forms intended for publication or distribution.

The consultant will work closely with the DCS Policy team to ensure documents comply with WCAG 2.1/2.2 Level AA, applicable PDF/UA requirements, DCS document standards, and established digital accessibility practices.

A critical responsibility is improving document accessibility and semantic structure without changing the substantive content, meaning, terminology, legal requirements, or policy intent.

Key Responsibilities

• Review and remediate DCS policy documents, protocols, fillable forms, and related electronic documents.
• Create accessible Microsoft Word source documents.
• Convert Word documents into accessible PDFs.
• Remediate existing PDFs for applicable WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA and PDF/UA requirements.
• Create and remediate accessible fillable PDF forms.
• Correct form fields, labels, instructions, grouping, tab order, and keyboard navigation.
• Establish proper document structure, heading hierarchy, reading order, and navigation.
• Create meaningful hyperlink text and appropriate alternative text.
• Properly identify decorative images/content so they are not unnecessarily announced by assistive technology.
• Remediate complex tables and determine when content should instead be structured using headings, lists, or paragraphs.
• Conduct automated and manual accessibility testing.
• Review document structure, forms, tables, links, images, reading order, and navigation.
• Perform quality-control reviews before publication.
• Assist with accessible Word and form templates.
• Identify recurring accessibility problems and recommend practices to reduce future remediation.

Minimum Requirements

Candidates should have experience with:

• WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 Level AA
• PDF/UA
• Accessible PDF structure and tagging
• Advanced Microsoft Word accessibility
• Adobe Acrobat Pro accessibility remediation
• Accessible fillable PDF forms
• Heading hierarchy and logical document structure
• Reading order and keyboard navigation
• Alternative text and meaningful hyperlinks
• Complex table remediation
• Automated accessibility testing
• Manual accessibility testing

Accessibility Tools

The requisition specifically identifies:

• Adobe Acrobat Pro
• WebAIM Contrast Checker
• WAVE
• ANDI
• Color Contrast Analyzer
• NVDA

Nice-to-Have Qualifications

Candidates who meet one or more of the following qualifications will receive preference:

• Experience with PAC (PDF Accessibility Checker)
• Experience with the Matterhorn Protocol
• Experience with comparable PDF/UA testing methodologies

Required Skills

The strongest candidates should be able to demonstrate hands-on experience with:

WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA | PDF/UA | PDF tagging | Adobe Acrobat Pro | Microsoft Word accessibility | Accessible PDF forms | Screen-reader testing | NVDA | Reading order | Alternative text | Table remediation | Keyboard navigation | Manual accessibility testing