ARTICLE SUMMARY: In this day and age all designers know accessibility is a must. The problem is there are a lot of designers out there that cringe when the word accessibility is mentioned.
They see timelines getting tighter, to do lists getting longer, and aggravation level rising. The truth is it doesn’t have to be that way.
In Jon Daiello’s “Unlocking Accessibility through Design Systems,” he takes a page out of WWII and shows how American manufacturers worried that wartime production requirements would slow them down while enemies gained ground and how they dealt with it. Using that mindset he talks about:
- The Afterthought Tax
- What Manufacturing Taught Us
- The Competitive Advantage
Part of the problem is the designers approach to accessibility, you build a digital product and then try and retrofit it for accessibility. It’s messy, expensive, and doesn’t quite work the way it should.
Designers need to approach accessibility as infrastructure, not a feature. When that happens, your design system becomes the foundation for supportive experiences, reframing the problem of accessibility from the ground up. When you stop fighting your own environment, teams start making better decisions because you now have the right tools and knowledge to create a seamless interface that supports all users.
This is a great article with a lot of useful information for both the new and seasoned designer.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
