CV
Summary
Senior accessibility specialist in the monitoring team at Government Digital Service (GDS) in Bristol, with strong technical expertise in accessibility and leadership experience in test roles on high-profile programmes.
Passionate about making technology work for everyone, with experience applying technical standards, defining test approaches, managing teams and stakeholders, and working across websites, mobile and digital services.
Career
Senior Accessibility Specialist, Government Digital Service (GDS)
February 2021 to present
My main role is to audit public sector websites and apps for the accessibility regulations, based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This includes:
- defining and iterating our strategy for simplified, detailed and mobile tests
- writing concise accessibility reports, working with public sector organisations and suppliers of procured software to help them resolve issues
- evaluating accessibility complaints made by disabled people
- adapting test approaches, from quick 10-minute checks to a full audit
During this time, I have:
Lead Test Engineer, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
September 2014 to February 2021
Accessibility specialist and tester mainly in agile teams, responsible for quality on five live Defra services, including Buy a Rod Fishing Licence and Register as a Waste Carrier, and other internal infrastructure projects. My work included:
- leading the Quality Assurance (QA) function on several services and projects, supervising colleagues, managing stakeholders and risk, and advocating for all aspects of quality throughout
- building in early accessibility by including it in a Definition of Done at each phase
- drafting, agreeing and publishing Defra's QA and Test standards
- assessing digital services (including as a lead assessor) for the Service Standard
Testing Specialist, Lloyds Banking Group
April 2006 to June 2014
Lead test specialist on teams of up to 30 people, accountable for quality on commercial branch projects. This included:
- supervising colleagues, both permanent and from suppliers, being accountable for the quality of their work (such as test plans, estimates and reports)
- supporting the team and advocating for the QA function with senior contacts
- leading on the simplification of internal processes, such as how to estimate project costs
- securing budget, dealing with escalations and technical queries
Other roles
April 2006 to June 2014
- Administrator, Halifax Bank of Scotland. October 2005 to February 2006
- Assistant language teacher, Yonezawa Board of Education, Japan. July 2003 to July 2005. This involved coordinating activities in a range of learning styles to help children aged 6 to 15 engage with English and UK culture, and assist Japanese teachers of English.
- Ward support administrator, Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust. June 2002 to May 2003.
Formal education
- BSc Mathematics (2:1), Durham University. September 1998 to June 2002, including year at Université de Savoie, France
- Four A-levels in Maths, Further Maths, French and Physics, all at grade A
- Ten GCSEs including Maths and English, all at grade A or A*.
Other skills, training and interests
I'm a certified Web Accessibility Specialist and use social media and accessibility communities to listen to disabled people's voices and keep my knowledge up to date.
My online portfolio, covering accessibility resources and hobbies (such as drawing and graphic design), is on www.AndrewHick.com. This has helped me learn how to build accessible web pages using HTML, CSS, JavaScript and ARIA, including a contrast checker for multiple colours.
Portfolio
More detail on specific things I've worked on.
Accessibility
My accessibility work
Defra Digital services
Highlights from my Accessibility, Quality Assurance and Test work on agile service teams at Defra Digital. Defra is the UK's Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs. Image credit: David Miller
Register as a waste carrier
- seamlessly moved the service from a complex code base with known accessibility issues to a single accessible version
- updated the registration and renewal journeys so they didn't require an account, doubling the number of people renewing onling and reducing call centre time
- ran performance tests using JMeter
- contributed heavily to research, prototyping and content
- published a blog post about the Waste Carriers changes
Buy a rod fishing licence
- carried out an accessibility audit which contributed to it passing one of Defra's first live assessments
- ran two automated test suites in JavaScript and Webdriver.io
- tested a PowerApps pilot tool for officers inspecting licence details
- managed test data in Microsoft Dynamics
Register your waste exemptions
- led detailed automated and manual testing, including on accessibility, to help prevent issues
- attended research sessions and contributed to the prototype using the GOV.UK prototype kit
- overwhelmingly positive feedback from our users and a 99% digital take up rate
Manage your water abstraction or impoundment licence
My first digital services were the Environment Agency's flood risk activity exemptions and sign up for flood warnings services. These are the projects where I did my first accessibility audits and learnt how to advocate for accessibility to be prioritised alongside other disciplines.
Defra test standards
I have published Defra's test standards page as part of the wider Defra development standards.
This has been well received across the development and test community, and has particularly helped new starters understand the minimum standards needed to assure quality on Defra services.
Assessments
I have assessed several government services, including as a lead assessor, to ensure their design and user experience meet the Government Service Standard.
Code
Automated tests
Over several years I've maintained test suites based in Javascript and Ruby.
I have also carried out proofs of concept using Cypress and Axe to test for accessibility.
My main contributions were to the following open-source test repositories:
Game code
I have been learning game design using the Godot engine. This uses GDScript, which is similar to Python in syntax.
It includes a working first level of the 1984 shoot-em-up Xzap, the first computer game I ever played (and my Stack Overflow handle).
My game code for Xzap is on GitHub.
I have also built a small game in PICO-8, about a pixelly cat who likes socks. The game code is based on the Lua language.
This site
Finally, I wrote this site from scratch using HTML and CSS with a small amount of JavaScript. My colour palette poster was also put together with JavaScript, including a simple animated version.
Other web work
Imagetek
Imagetek are a document scanning, digitisation and archiving company based in East Devon.
I've designed, prototyped and deployed their current website and am working closely with them as they reorganise their business and add more content.
Compared to the previous version of the site, this version has simplified content, fewer links and is much more mobile-friendly.
There's more about the branding on the design page.
Quality assurance wiki
I previously maintained the public QA wiki for Defra (the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).
GitHub worked well for us as a platform, to make it editable across the team but also shareable with other organisations.
Other things
During the rest of my career I have:
- Owned and maintained Halifax's test intranet site
- Led a team of testers covering Lloyds commercial banking applications
- Created a J-pop site to help language teachers in Japan learn more about Japanese pop music
- Led quality assurance for the Environment Agency's Mutual Aid Tool, which the National Incident Room uses to coordinate equipment between areas.
I also do design (web design, accessibility and graphic design), art (drawings, cross stitch and pixel art), mind maps and puzzles.