Senior Usability & Accessibility Specialist - London

Deadine: 8 February 2010
JOB DESCRIPTION
Job Title: Senior Usability & Accessibility Specialist
Division: BBC Future Media & Technology, Journalism
Base: London
Grade:8D
1 year fixed term contract

A key contributor at all points of the project lifecycle for three of the biggest sites on the BBC: News, Sport and Weather, the Usability Manager for FM&T Journalism is involved from project inception, helping to expose important behavioural information through the design process, overseeing usability and accessibility testing through to final delivery.

WHO WE ARE
The Future Media (FM) User Experience and Design (UX&D) team within BBC ‘Future Media & Technology, Journalism’ is responsible for delivering world-class interactive sites and services that support the BBC’s broadcast output and provide compelling user experiences in their own right on the internet, mobile and interactive TV platforms.

Working in the FM&T Journalism UX&D team you would have the unique opportunity of gaining usability and accessibility experience across multiple products and platforms whilst working in agile, multi-disciplinary teams. Our aim is to be the most creative organisation in the world. To help us reach that goal we need experienced usability and accessibility professionals with talent and flair, a real understanding of working with disabled and non-disabled audiences, and a passion for interactive media.

The Usability & Accessibility Specialist will be working with the Journalism Head of UX&D, Product Owners and Creative Directors and in close collaboration with the FM&T Journalism technical team.

PURPOSE OF THE JOB
To be part of the Future Media User Experience and Design team for Journalism responsible for enabling all audience-facing FM products and services across all platforms, networks and devices, to engage with representatives of their audience during design, prototyping, development and pre-release.

To ensure the usability of FM products and services and their accessibility to people who have sensory, physical, learning or cognitive disabilities (who may be using them via assistive technologies).

To ensure the quality of the Usability & Accessibility service provided in Journalism - being able to do this for their own work and, where necessary, to provide this supervision for a small team of Usability & Accessibility Specialists.

To work with the Journalism Head of User Experience & Design in situating their Usability & Accessibility work within the evolving User-Centred Design processes within Journalism, and proving their work’s value-add to Journalism products.

MAIN DUTIES
Supervising a small team of Usability & Accessibility Specialists
• allocating tasks amongst that team of Usability & Accessibility Specialists
o working with the Journalism Head of User Experience & Design to allocate UASes to projects in a way which balances: the need for the project to get the UAS with the best fit of skills and experience to that project, and the need for each UAS to work on a wide range of projects to optimise and diversify their skills (across platforms and research/testing methodologies)
• supervising that team of Usability & Accessibility Specialists on a day-to-day basis
o providing them with guidance, feedback, advice, support and mentoring on their work
o advising them on the training and development of their Usability & Accessibility skills
o monitoring and ensuring the quality of their work (including providing reasoned critique where necessary, and encouraging sharing of best practice across the team by organising and chairing regular team best-practice meetings)
o being their first port of call for escalating any difficult situations that arise in their UAS work on projects
Helping U&A management run an effective U&A service:
• to help evangelise the usability and accessibility of FM products and services throughout the organisation
• to help develop the U&A service:
o to help management ensure that the user research tools the UAS team employ are the best they can be – ensuring usability and accessibility standards are efficient, effective, appropriate, up to date, and best practice, by keeping abreast of new tools and techniques being used in the rest of the usability industry
o to help management ensure user testing and research findings are used strategically
o to maintain regular contact with other usability and accessibility counterparts in other divisions to ensure a consistent approach to the application of usability and accessibility methodologies to FM projects
• to help with supplier management, aiming to ensure the BBC makes the best strategic use of these suppliers
U & A service consultancy:
• To have a detailed understanding of how our audiences interact with BBC services.
• To work across a range of FM projects (web, mobile and interactive TV), providing consultancy for each project:
o to champion the needs of the full audience of users – both disabled and non-disabled – within the project
o to evangelise the importance and benefits of usability and accessibility to project teams
o to promote user-centred design within the project team, and facilitate them to gain a better understanding of the needs of these users, and how they should impact the project:
providing expert advice on the range of users and their particular needs to the project team’s design processes:
• running participatory design sessions
• assisting non-usability team members in understanding usability issues and practices
setting up opportunities for the project team to engage with a representative range of users via user research (focus groups, ethnographic research, or usability testing)
o to document all such user-centred design work, own the set of usability-accessibility-requirements arising (with the project’s creative director), and to fight for them throughout the project
tracking usability and accessibility issues and reporting progress towards meeting usability goals to management (incl writing and maintaining the project’s accessibility policy)
liaising with team leads throughout the project to ensure that usability findings are integrated into the project plan


U & A usability research (incl. testing):
• To advise project teams on user research methodologies, timescales, resources and budgets required for effective user research.
• To carry out user research using a variety of UCD techniques including: usability tests; expert reviews; card sorts, persona definition workshops; informal user interviews
• To work on all aspects of a user research assignment including:
o planning
to plan whether the work should be done wholly internally, wholly externally or mixed
o designing & briefing
to work with the project team in designing the user research, resulting in the creation of a brief which can be used to commission the testing either internally or externally (from an agency)
o recruitment of resources
(if not doing the research wholly externally) working with a recruitment agency to recruit the participants specified in the brief; finding and booking a location in which to conduct the tests
o scripting
creating the script for the research sessions; or liaising with the external agency in their creation of this script (if testing wholly externally)
o conducting the research (if not doing the testing wholly externally)
to organise note-takers to capture data
to organise execs and production teams to view the research
to conduct the research, in the location booked, with the subjects recruited, according to the script created
o reporting
to interpret qualitative and quantitative data from the user research
to analyse that data and write usability reports and presentations from it
o feedback/results
to run and design feedback sessions based on user research
to work with a project team to help define solutions to issues identified from user research
to ensure results from user research are considered in a project team’s decision making process
• To work to the BBC’s policy on Health and Safety and best practice on engagement with users (CRB checks, DPA etc.)
• To be aware of personal financial authority limits and to ensure that this authority is exercised in accordance with BBC financial arrangements

U & A service development:
• To ensure that the user research tools they use are the best they can be – efficient, effective, appropriate, up to date, best practice
o to maintain a comprehensive understanding of user research tools and techniques.
o to maintain a comprehensive understanding of accessibility and usability for disabled people.
o to keep abreast of current research and thinking in the usability and accessibility fields, to research and prepare material in support of new usability and accessibility methods /techniques, and inform and educate teams across the different disciplines.
o to contribute to the identification and implementation of appropriate data gathering and analysis methodologies and techniques, such as: rapid prototyping; scenario writing; design reviews.
• To make strategic use of user research findings:
o to analyse the findings from the user research they conduct on the projects they work on and attempt to draw out of this more general usability and accessibility findings which could be applied more widely throughout BBC products
o to use this analysis to stimulate discussion within the UASes, and help set and maintain usability and accessibility standards and ensure the adherence of all work to these standards.
o where appropriate, to write presentations /academic papers to publish these findings to a wide BBC and non-BBC audience
• To keep abreast of industry developments in new platforms and design technology and be able to develop ethnographic research to interpret how these would impact BBC services from a usability and accessibility perspective
Teamwork
• To provide holiday/sickness cover for other consultants, as and when needed.
• When required, to act as a mentor to new staff.
• To maintain regular content with other U&A Consultants throughout the BBC and the FM central U&A team, and share experience and documentation with them.

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE
You must have:
• understanding and practical experience of HCI expertise - this includes lab studies, expert evaluations, participatory design sessions, rapid prototyping, ethnographic research methods and persona development
• experience of employing HCI based methods and tools such as user modelling, task analysis, scenarios, use cases, wire frames, paper prototypes, labelling schemes, flow diagrams, site maps and comparative analyses
• proven ability to quickly understand the user-need in any product or service.
• proven experience in designing and conducting usability testing in a consumer-facing environment.
• excellent written, verbal communication and presentation skills - the ability to communicate and argue for results, methods, and approaches (orally and in writing) with internal clients, including the ability to make effective group presentations
• the ability to perform well under pressure and work to tight deadlines.

Ideally, you will have:
• a Masters degree in HCI (or equivalent experience).
• extensive commercial experience in an interactive information design environment, with an HCI or Cognitive Psychology-related role.
• a good understanding of accessibility and usability for disabled people, and experience of user research with disabled people
• experience of analysing the navigation structure and interaction design of user interfaces, creating interaction design diagrams and documentation and working with other disciplines

COMPETENCIES
Analytical Thinking
• Gathers relevant information from a range of sources
• Sifts information and selects what is significant
• Understands the importance of empirical evidence in the support of production Standards and Guidelines
• Translates analysis into practical action plans
• Able to simplify complex problems, processes or projects. Can explore and evaluate them systematically.
• Can identify causal relationships and construct frameworks for problem solving and/or development.
• Thinks clearly and decisively, particularly when faced with unexpected problems
• Has confidence in own judgement whilst knowing when to refer to a more senior level
• Maintains responsibility for own decisions

Planning and Organising
• Able to think ahead to establish an efficient and appropriate course of action for self and others.
• Prioritises and plans activities taking into account all the relevant issues such as deadlines, staffing and resource requirements.
• Excellent project management skills, showing the ability to prioritise and plan activities taking all factors such as deadlines and resource requirements into account
• Excellent organising and administrative skills.

Influencing and Persuading
• Able to present sound and well-reasoned arguments to convince others
• Can draw from a range of strategies to persuade people in a way that results in agreement or behaviour change.
• Excellent negotiating skills

Communication
• Effective and well-developed communications style – keeps people informed through appropriate media
• Able to be persuasive and convince others of the merit to their business of collaboration and co-operation with your role in their project.
• Able to express your ideas clearly and confidently, with the flexibility to adapt your communication style to the needs of others.
• Able to understand the effect on others of your own person style of communication.
• Clarifies understanding by asking questions and probing carefully
• Is approachable and sensitive to the needs of others
• Actively promotes two-way communication
• Proactively shares knowledge and information

Managing Relationships and Team Working
• Able to build and maintain effective working relationships with a range of people
• Works co-operatively with others to be part of a team.

Developing talent and diversity
• Coaches others to build on strengths and improve on weaknesses
• Able to identify and apply opportunities for learning and development.

Collaborating across boundaries
• Challenges systems, processes and people that block collaboration
• Connects people, ideas, processes, and issues
• Sets an example by sharing resources, knowledge ideas and skills across the organisation
• Builds helpful productive relationships across the organisation


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