Introduction

The 'Ask the Professional' events are free and recognised as professional development for many organisations.

Join OZeWAI members and guests, including knowledgeable digital accessibility experts, specialists and researchers from all over the world, as well as leaders in the industry, government and non-profit organisations, to explore and support digital inclusion topics and ideas.

Topic: Tips and tricks for accessibility testing PDFs.

This panel event will bring together accessibility specialists for you to:

Ask questions of the experts
Share knowledge of similar issues
Find where to get help with accessibility advice and expertise

Session access requirements

The session agenda and access details will be shared 2 days before the event. This is a remote online event using Zoom.

Please email info@ozewai.org if you wish to share any tools, communication methods or anything else we should consider to ensure you can fully participate in the session.

Thank you from the OZeWAI Committee

Panelists:

Charissa Ramirez (she/her)

Charissa is a senior accessibility consultant who advocates and designs for accessibility and inclusion. She has held various roles in digital channels, strategic communications, and policy teams in federal and NSW Government departments. She initiated accessibility programs and performed accessibility user research, auditing, document remediation, and training.

Charissa has been running accessibility empathy labs since 2019 to start conversations about accessibility and showcase the impact of inaccessible products due to a mismatch between user needs, design, and technology.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/charamirez/

Heather Jakubczyk (she/her)

Heather has over 12 years of experience in the field of digital accessibility, specializing in PDF remediation. As a trusted subject matter expert and consultant in accessible document solutions, she has presented internationally about the importance of the human expert working in tandem with machine learning and AI technology. She empowers content authors to create inclusive digital experiences and remediators to go beyond checklists fostering appropriate semantics and usability in structure for end-users.

Over the past decade, she has provided strategies for document service and remediation teams, creating and implementing training programs that build skillsets, uphold the latest accessibility standards, and maintain excellence in large-scale remediation projects. The core competencies in her training approaches combine theoretical understanding of requirements and semantics, execution and implementation of remediation techniques within documents, and testing for usability and compliance with manual and automated tools. She develops strategies to maintain consistent, high-quality remediation practices, supports specialized roles such as alternative text writing experts and quality control teams, and drives innovation in accessibility tools and processes. Her work aims embrace accessibility as both a compliance requirement and an inclusive digital experiences for everyone.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-jakubczyk-1117a158/

Matthew Putland (he/him)

A passionate, accessible HTML and semantics expert, Matt has over a decade of experience working with digital accessibility as his core focus. As a Digital Accessibility Specialist at the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), he provides accessible design guidance as well as technical guidance on how to make our products accessible to as many people as possible. He is also the Co-founder of Modality Co, a social enterprise dedicated to providing accessibility consulting to fund disability and accessibility communities in Tasmania.

In his career, Matt has conducted countless public and in-house training courses covering web, mobile apps and document accessibility. He’s also consulted with many large corporations, banks, universities and smaller organisations, including not-for-profits, to improve their digital accessibility.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-putland/

Moderated by:

Amanda Mace (she/her)

Amanda is a Subject Matter Expert in Digital Accessibility with more than 10 years of experience in the industry. She manages the Australasia office for GrackleDocs while growing and promoting the brand across the region. She also manages the audit team, which is responsible for manual WCAG audits for our clients. Amanda is one of only two Australian-based W3C evangelists and the W3C Australian Western Region Chapter manager.

When it comes to accessibility, she believes that innovation with accessibility built into it provides security, independence, and privacy for people with disabilities and ultimately better, more usable digital products for all. She has spent her career advocating that it is everyone's job to do their bit to remove barriers so all people can have equal access and equal opportunity in the digital world. Using her expertise in WCAG and PDF/UA to educate and help others understand digital access as well as how to go above and beyond standards, to ensure great user experiences.

She is certified by the Australian Computer Society (ACS) as a Certified Professional. Having begun her accessibility career as a WCAG auditor/tester, she worked her way up in that small business through to management. Throughout her career. She has had many opportunities to contribute to educating others about digital accessibility, including co-authoring a book chapter for the textbook, "Web Accessibility A Foundation for Research," as well as a white paper entitled, "Digital Accessibility: Perceptions, Expectations and Reality."

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-mace-85171b77/