Jan Rowe

Why this persona fits the audience

Supports a UK government-adjacent SaaS portal with about 18,000 pages and recurring content changes. Runs scheduled scans in Siteimprove, then compares findings with manual checks and W3C validation before weekly release notes.

• Age: 38
• Location: London, UK
• Occupation: Accessibility analyst
• Income: £62k
• Education: Master's degree in human-computer interaction
• Company size: Mid-sized contractor (approx. 45 employees) delivering to the DWP and HMRC
• Years in role: 6

“You can build the fastest engine in the world, but if you lock the driver out, the car goes nowhere.”

Jan Rowe has spent the last six years navigating the complex intersection of public policy and software engineering in London. Holding a Master's in Human-Computer Interaction, she transitioned from a generalist QA role to specialize exclusively in digital accessibility after witnessing a government service fail a blind user. Her current role involves safeguarding access to a massive SaaS portal serving 18,000 pages for UK government departments. Unlike many peers who rely solely on black-box testing, Jan employs a hybrid methodology: she runs scheduled automated scans via Siteimprove, then rigorously validates findings against W3C standards and her own manual checklists. This process is critical because the portal undergoes frequent content updates, creating a moving target for compliance. Jan is driven by a deep-seated belief in public service; she views accessibility not as a checklist but as a civil right. However, her environment is fraught with tension. Developers often view her checks as bureaucratic hurdles, leading to occasional friction where she must negotiate compromises without compromising legal standards. She operates on a £62k salary, which allows for a comfortable but disciplined life in East London. She is financially prudent, investing heavily in her pension and avoiding consumer debt. Her professional reputation rests on consistency; she is the person who ensures that no update slips through the cracks. Recently, she has been frustrated by the limitations of her current toolset, particularly the noise generated by automated scanners, but remains hesitant to adopt unproven competitors without rigorous, side-by-side validation data. She is currently focused on reducing the time spent on false positives to reclaim hours for deeper, manual usability research.

Background & daily life

A day in their life

Jan starts her morning with a walk along the canal, listening to podcasts on urban planning. By 9:00 AM, she is at her desk, logging into the portal dashboard. Her first task is running the nightly Siteimprove scan, which generates a PDF report of over 2,000 potential issues. She spends the next three hours manually verifying these flags, distinguishing between genuine barriers and configuration errors. Lunch is eaten quickly at her desk while reading the latest ARIA spec updates. Afternoon meetings involve pushing back on a developer's proposed navigation change due to keyboard trap risks. She ends the day by updating the internal wiki with today's findings and drafting the weekly release note summary, ensuring every claim is backed by a screenshot or log entry.

Lifestyle

Jan lives in a converted warehouse flat in Shoreditch, filled with vintage maps and ergonomic furniture that supports her chronic lower back pain. Her routine is rigid; she wakes at 6:15 AM for a 45-minute walk along the Regent's Canal before work, using this time to decompress from the high-stakes nature of her job. She knits as a tactile counterbalance to screen fatigue, often working on scarves for local hospices. Financially, she is cautious, maximizing pension contributions while avoiding luxury debt. Socially, she prefers one-on-one coffee meetups or small gallery visits over large networking events, valuing deep conversation over broad networking.

Work life

Jan's day revolves around the stability of a massive legacy portal. She spends mornings reviewing automated scan reports from Siteimprove, cross-referencing them against her own manual testing scripts and W3C validator logs. The pressure comes from the sheer volume of content updates; developers often push code late in the week, forcing Jan into crisis mode to ensure nothing breaks accessibility rules before the Friday release. She acts as the gatekeeper between aggressive development timelines and strict public sector mandates, often negotiating scope cuts rather than delaying releases.

Relationships

Jan is married to a software architect in Bristol, their relationship anchored by shared values but separated by distance during the week. She maintains a close circle of three friends from university, mostly meeting for dinner once a month. Professionally, she is highly regarded by her direct manager but sometimes viewed as a bottleneck by senior developers. She relies heavily on online communities like the A11y Slack channel for peer support when facing isolated technical impasses.

How they decide

Jan is a methodical researcher who demands empirical evidence before adopting any new workflow. She does not make impulsive decisions; instead, she builds spreadsheets comparing features, cost-per-seat, and integration capabilities. She is skeptical of marketing claims and requires proof of concept data, often running side-by-side tests with existing tools before considering a switch. Peer recommendations from trusted colleagues carry more weight than vendor sales pitches.

How they sound

Jan speaks with a precise, clipped cadence typical of London professionals. She avoids hyperbole, preferring 'likely' or 'probable' over 'definitely.' Her tone is polite but firm, rarely raising her voice even when correcting a critical error. She uses industry terminology fluently—'focus states,' 'color contrast ratios,' 'semantic markup'—but explains concepts simply when speaking to non-technical stakeholders. She avoids slang and never admits to uncertainty publicly, instead framing unknowns as 'areas for further investigation.'