Case Studies: Examples of Blaire's Work
Shift-Left at CVS
Assigned to the MinuteClinic products at CVS Health. Embedded on a SAFe Agile Train and worked in the Product Iteration (PI) model by supporting design work throughout each sprint. We have delivered one product and are currently developing our second.
As the accessibility designer, I have held retrospectives and post-mortems related to what went right and what went wrong in delivering the first product, and have adapted the accessibility process to prepare for the second product delivery, including providing more detailed annotations to anticipate common code defects, with special attention to:
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Icons within a link's interactive area (chevrons, external site icons, outbound phone call icons)
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Skip-link navigation in the global header components
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Line spacing and component padding
While on the Health Solutions team at CVS, I have been working with Product Owners, Developers, Experience Designers (UX) and Content Designers (CX) from an early phase of development for the project, which meant that accessible practices were implemented from very early on. As a member of the accessibility design group embedded on product teams, I have been responsible for:
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Accessible product development for Minimal Viable Product delivery by reviewing and annotating designs in Figma
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Upskilling education for experience and content designers, design leads, product owners and managers, and developers
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Defect remediation
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Product Ideation to Minimal Viable Product Delivery
Inclusion and accessibility during feature development
As features have been developed, advised on and caught topics that may not be inclusive or accessible, for example:
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How will people who cannot communicate verbally meet with a telehealth provider? Is there a chat option, or can those users opt to have an American Sign Language interpreter at the appointment? Are live captions automatic, or must the user turn them on ahead of time? Can we solve this in the user interface or must it be solved in content? How do we create the infrastructure for this?
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When designing strategies for dependent (child) access healthcare, which adults may be helping a young person set up an appointment (caregiver, legal guardian, parent, step-parent, adult sibling, etc.)? How is this reflected in the way a user sets up an account? How many accounts are allowed to include the same children?
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Are email notifications accessible? Can we ensure no inaccessible containers or text-in-image are being used to convey appointment information to users?
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If a user wants to sign up for an appointment but does not see their gender represented, how can we help them feel safe in their healthcare journey? Can we provide an explanation as to how this information is used, and which personal documents this information should match? Can we ensure a user can make a medical appointment, regardless of their gender identity, sex assigned at birth, legal sex, or other information which may or may not match insurance documents?
Design System documentation
Ensure that our Experience Designers use our Design System UI Kit and keep them updated when the kit receives new or updated components. Work with the accessibility designer who is assigned to the UI Kit material creation to keep track of new updates, request changes based on common use-cases, ask clarifying questions about any accessibility concerns, and communicate changes with my design team.
Communicate changes to developers to prevent defects that may result in developers working on new components.
Annotations
Once a design has been determined to be accessible and has followed the Design System, I annotate designs so that developers are aware of:
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Landmarks
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Heading levels
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Alt and decorative text
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Semantic specifications for paragraph text (for example, ensuring an ordered list or strong text is coded appropriately)
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ARIA labels
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Link targets
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Reading order
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Global components
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Text sizing, color and spacing
Upskilling Education
Educational sessions
Host educational sessions about topics that frequently come up in our designs, such as:
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How do Search Engine Optimization and Accessibility interact with one another?
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What is the difference between sex and gender, and how should we collect this information in patient intake forms?
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How do we write for plain language when presenting complicated medical topics?
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How do screen readers work?
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How do we write alt text for stock images when information about the subjects is unknown (gender, race and ethnicity, age)?
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Why should headings be written descriptive enough for navigational purposes?
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How to write for cognitive disabilities and reduce the cognitive load we are putting on the user?
Defect Remediation
As defects become identified by our engineering team once designs go into code, I check the defects to ensure they were not a result of a design recommendation. If defects were a result of a design, I collaborate with the appropriate team members to make recommendations to our engineers on how to remediate. I keep track of common defects and preemptively work with designers to ensure common defects no longer resurface or become repeated in our design deliverables.
Current defect challenges
Currently, working on defects which include:
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No skip-links in global menus
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Heading levels being skipped
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Icons not being coded into a link's interactive area
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Error messages for user input fields that have information dependent on other input fields (Street address, state, and ZIP code)
Vendor defect remediation
When our vendor came to us with a telehealth appointment hosting prototype that was not accessible, I was the team member who discovered and reported the inaccessible prototype: I immediately let my Design Managers and Design Leads know and, as an interim solution, remediated and advised on over 100 defects before passing the defects off to a dedicated vendor defect team. These defects included:
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Pages beginning with Heading 6s
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All content was center-aligned
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Color contrast did not meet minimum requirements
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Paragraph text spacing did not meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards
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Images and icons were missing alt text and not indicated to be decorative
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Appointment picking was in a carousel that could not be activated by tab or Voice Select
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Links and buttons being used inappropriately
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Link text that is not descriptive enough
Response to Office of Civil Rights Lawsuit at the University of Maine System
Hired as the result of an Office of Civil Rights lawsuit to the University of Maine System. Served as an Accessibility Trainer, Content Specialist and User Experience Generalist.
Accessibility Trainings
Developed training and taught editors across the University of Maine System accessibility best practices for Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 AA requirements.
Trained over 300 individual contributors in one-on-one sessions on their responsibilities for accessibility and how to:
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Create accessible PDFs and Word documents
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Remediate inaccessible PDFs and Word documents
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Create accessible web pages
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Create accessible accompanying materials for videos
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Create accessible accompanying materials for audio materials (podcasts)
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Write alt text for images
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Check color contrast and text sizing and type requirements
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And other accessibility topics as needed
Digital Content Management System Guidelines and Training
Developed training to teach Content Management System (CMS) WordPress to department editors, utilized user experience and web best practices to create accompanying knowledge base so that users could troubleshoot CMS-related problems.
On Track for College
Served as project manager for the “On Track for College” initiative for the University of Maine System in an effort to ensure the recruitment project remained accessible to potential students and their families throughout the project:
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Created website by first drawing wireframes and then generated site upon approval
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Worked with advertising partner and advised on accessibility needs for campaign branding
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Developed, organized and lead over 75 campus admissions, marketing and web administrative personnel to create virtual college recruitment events during COVID-19 pandemic
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Title IX Website
Created Title IX website from scratch by utilizing:
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User journey methodology for research
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Empathy mapping
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Wireframes
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Content and design choices for users in crisis seeking emergency resources
Content strategy included public and internal policy.
Review examples of Blaire's designs