Marco Salsiccia

Accessibility Specialist

About Me

I'm a Bay Area native and am a former senior animator and Visual FX artist. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the Art Institute of California - San Francisco back in 2005 and majored in Media Arts and Computer Animation. Unfortunately, I am no longer in the animation field as complications from medical issues I had as a baby took all my vision away in 2014 and I am now fully blind.

I am now working as an accessibility consultant, making apps and websites accessible for the blind, visually impaired, and people with other disabilities. I'm an expert with VoiceOver, Jaws, TalkBack, can test in both MacOS and Windows, and am learning how to code in order to become an accessibility engineer. I'm an expert in HTML and CSS especially regarding how they interact with assistive technology, and am at an intermediate level with JavaScript, PHP, jQuery, and Python. I specialize in end-user testing for accessibility, being an accessibility evangelist for all parts of a company, from the app to the site to overall UX/UI along with internal tools. I'm a fierce advocate for ADA Rights, fully understand WCAG 2.1 and Section 508 Compliance, and know how to speak to engineers to help them learn how to make their projects accessible overall.

Ensuring that Accessibility is thought of at the start of a project rather than having it bolted on as an afterthought is a major goal of mine in any role I take on concerning accessible and inclusive design and testing. I work with designers during the feature spec period to help them understand how users with different disabilities and barriers interact with technology. Empathetic design is extremely important, and educating everyone along the product, app, or site development pipeline has become one of my most strongest suits in this arena. I have spoken at GrowthX Academy and to UX graduates and additional cohorts at General Assembly about accessible design and how to aim for universal design and making sure all user case scenarios are considered before bringing an idea to production. I've spoken on panels regarding inclusive and accessible design at the Internet Archive, at SXSW, Mode Analytics, and have helped Cerego and Lyft fill out VPAT documents so that they were able to push for and have government contracts accepted in the public sphere.

I was the Accessibility Specialist for Lyft from 2016 until Dec. 30 2022 when hiring freezes and budget issues resulted in my contract not being renewed. I learned a lot during my time there, and have a wealth of knowledge to share regarding accessibility team and product design/development wherever I go next. I participate in multiple research and user studies held by Smith-Kettlewell and the Lighthouse for the Blind in San Francisco. As of January 2020, I've been based in Oakland, and pre-pandemic I would regularly test user flows and participate in research studies held by Google, Facebook, Visa, and other companies in and around the Bay Area. I've extended this to virtual studies held by a variety of researchers at various schools around the world.

Sites and apps that I have direct involvement in a11y remediation include:

I'm also an improvisational pianist and have some samples of both my piano music and electronic music uploaded here for your enjoyment, plus feel free to have a look at my reel from 2012 to get a sense of what I used to do on a daily basis. Feel free to contact me if you have positions available for accessibility specialists at your company or are looking for an end-user tester for your products. Thank you!

- Marco Salsiccia

2020 Update: I created a new section of my site devoted to the work I used to have up here when I had vision, containing fun student work from college all the way up to the last reel I ever created. Check out my Past Work here.