Designing products that everyone can use, in every environment.
Accessibility plays a central role in ensuring that digital products can be used by people of all abilities, across devices, browsers, and environments.
The goal is not only to meet WCAG guidelines, but also to build experiences that naturally reduce friction, improve clarity, and increase usability for every user.
Accessibility work typically begins by mapping requirements aligned to WCAG 2.1 AA, covering areas such as:
• Color contrast
• Keyboard navigation
• Screen reader compatibility
• Focus states
• Font sizing and scalability
• Component-level accessibility attributes (ARIA labels, roles, alt text)
These guidelines shape the foundation for visual UI decisions, interaction patterns, and documentation.
A structured evaluation process supports accessibility compliance across multiple products. This involves:
• Reviewing existing screens and identifying contrast or layout issues
• Ensuring components follow consistent patterns
• Documenting accessibility gaps and strengthening product design libraries
• Working closely with developers to align expected behavior at component level
Accessibility checks are performed not only on final screens but also during design iterations, so issues can be corrected early.
Accessibility improvements are most effective when design, development, QA, and product teams work together. Collaboration includes:
• Sharing annotated designs with accessibility notes
• Coordinating with developers to verify ARIA roles and keyboard flows
• Supporting QA during testing cycles
• Ensuring QA test cases include accessibility scenarios (tab order, screen reader output, zoom testing, etc.)
1. Free and Easy Accessibility Plug-ins
Chrome extensions and free web tools streamline the audit process.
Commonly used plugins include:
WAVE Accessibility Tool – identifies WCAG issues on any webpage
Axe DevTools (Free version) – checks contrast, HTML structure, and ARIA errors
Color Contrast Checker – quick validation for text and background combinations
Lighthouse – provides an overall accessibility score and improvement suggestions
These tools help quickly identify issues in early mockups, prototypes, and working web builds.
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2. BrowserStack for Accessibility Testing
BrowserStack is used to test product accessibility across:
Multiple browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge)
Different operating systems (Windows, macOS, mobile platforms)
Varying screen sizes and display densities
This ensures that contrast, focus indicators, headings, and interactive elements behave consistently across environments.
BrowserStack also supports testing with screen readers such as VoiceOver (macOS) and NVDA/JAWS (Windows), which helps validate real-world user experiences.
The accessibility practice highlights several important learnings for product design teams:
• Accessibility is not a one-time check, but a continuous process integrated into every design and development cycle.
• Early involvement of accessibility considerations significantly reduces rework.
• Collaboration between design, development, and QA leads to higher-quality outcomes.
• Accessible design naturally improves overall UX by reducing cognitive load and making interfaces more intuitive.
• Tools and plugins accelerate evaluation, but manual testing with screen readers and keyboard-only navigation remains essential.
