Accessibility Enablement
Moving accessibility from a compliance checkpoint into everyday design practice.
Impact:
Helped embed WCAG 2.2 AA into enterprise design practice by remediating ~28 design-system components, introducing three accessible components, supporting four project teams, and extending accessibility guidance across a 30-person design studio.
Role:Senior Experience Designer · Accessibility design lead.
Owned:Component remediation, accessible patterns, documentation, practical guidance.
Design-side accessibility work across the initiative.
Led:2 QA/accessibility auditors, 5 developers, project teams, design leadership, stakeholders.
Partnered with:The Challenge:
A new accessibility mandate required the design system, website, and mobile app to meet WCAG 2.2 AA within a tight timeline. The work spanned multiple business units and a roughly 30-person design studio, with accessibility knowledge and implementation practices varying across teams.
The 4 decisions:
01 — Fix the foundation first.
Instead of addressing accessibility one screen at a time, I started with the design system so improvements could scale across products.
The design system came with many challenges, from understanding how components were being used to working through the differences in how each one was implemented in code. I researched across pages and talked with teams to reach agreement on what each component should do, how it should behave, and how it should be used, all grounded in WCAG requirements and accessibility best practices.
28
Design-system components remediated
3
New accessible components introduced
02 — Move accessibility upstream.
I wrote component guidance and developer requirements so accessibility was addressed during design instead of caught in QA.
After consulting designers across content, research, and UI, I built a documentation model with change logs, plain-language explanations, and live examples, plus animated demos where motion or interaction needed to be seen to be understood.
What I started with
Image: Footer component before I worked on it
How I modernized component maintenance, guidance, and examples
Image: New component called Informative banner and transformation of documentation
03 — Turn expertise into a team capability.
I created Accessibility Bytes and supported designers through office hours, working sessions, and practical training so they could apply WCAG requirements to active projects instead of relying on standards documentation alone.
I also designed a six-week, hands-on training (examples, discussion, and redesign) and piloted it with two designers. Accessibility can be hard to explain, and our studio is highly visual, so I built the training around seeing and doing. After the pilot, it was reviewed and added to the studio playbook as part of standard training.
Image: A11Y Bytes screenshot (The image is censored to protect information)
Image: Figma with training program for designers
04 — Connect design decisions to implementation.
I established a recurring design-development sync to work through technical accessibility constraints and turn requirements into real components and interactions, not only within the accessibility team but also across the many other teams we were internally auditing and supporting.
It was a major learning experience, and not always an easy one. Making accessibility part of our DNA took difficult conversations, negotiation, and multiple redesign sessions. Along the way, we built a shared belief that accessible design is simply better design, and that it can be beautiful, enjoyable, and a way to elevate brand value.
A tangible example of collaboration:
One of the hardest challenges was decoupling the stepper from the progress bar. Some teams used both, others only the step count. The component had been built around system and forms logic rather than the user’s cognitive load, so people had to guess how long a task would take, couldn’t predict its length, and couldn’t count on consistent behavior across products.
I proposed splitting the component and mapped which teams would need to adapt. The conversation was long and emotionally charged, because every team had a valid reason for how they had built it. I listened to each team’s constraints first, then worked with our expert developers and QA toward a solution that respected those constraints while fixing the user experience. The rework was substantial, but we landed on a solution that worked for everyone.
Image: Legacy stepper and progress bar
Image: New Stepper
Image: Progress bar
My Takeaway
My approach as a lead is to multiply impact through others.
Success is not what I deliver as a solo contributor, it’s when my team owns accessibility, builds it into their daily checks, and delivers it consistently without needing me in the room. Accessibility is never finished, and neither is my learning. I’ll keep growing, keep helping others grow, and keep supporting the accessibility transformation so it lasts beyond any one person or project.
Ongoing work
This initiative is currently in progress. The case study captures the approach, decisions, and impact to date; final outcomes and measurable results will be added as they become available.
Recognition: Below are some of the kudos I’ve received for my contributions to the team.
“Angie - Your leadership in designing accessible experiences for EUDS R1 ensured WCAG 2.2 AA requirements were embedded directly into the user flows from the start. By proactively identifying accessibility considerations and refining design to meet compliance standards, you enabled a smoother development and testing process and helped establish a strong foundation for the release.”
- Logan MacCartney, Project Manager
“Angie - I wanted to nominate you for the Buzz Lightyear Award (internal award) for all the great work you’ve done on accessibility. (…) She has been helping a lot of teams navigate a very tight timeline, helping assist with a lot of design work, guiding the team to make sure we can make our 12/10 deadline. (…) She’s also critical about how we can make sure we’re not running into the same situation again.”
- Stephanie Loughran, Experience Design Manager
Up Next:
Making complex energy data easier to navigate
A customer-facing experience that turned scattered EV and energy data into something clearer, more actionable, and easier to understand.