Summary
Incorporating accessibility can be seen as a daunting task, especially for products that have already been released. Alexis Lucio, Senior Accessibility Lead at Splunk, will share her journey in making accessibility a first-class citizen within Splunk Design System. Topics include: how to advocate for accessibility, utilizing use cases to optimize design and dev, how to utilize user input, and ideas on how to collaborate with cross-functional partners.
Key Insights
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Accessibility (a11y) benefits 15% of the global population and improves product quality beyond legal compliance.
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Automation tools catch only about 30% of accessibility defects and generate false positives, so human review remains essential.
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Accessibility should be integrated early in the design phase to fix up to two-thirds of accessibility bugs before development.
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Common resistance to accessibility work often stems from misconceptions about limiting creativity or overreliance on automation.
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Applying the three C's—context, content, and custom workflows—is critical for designing accessible complex UI components.
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Unique naming and function roles in components like message bars prevent confusion for screen reader users and maintain accessibility.
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Breadcrumb navigation is frequently mishandled by relying only on color cues, which excludes low-vision or colorblind users.
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An accessibility one-pager with human impact explanations helps align cross-functional teams on accessibility goals.
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Incremental changes and continuous audits—such as moving from WCAG 2.0 to 2.2—are more realistic than aiming for instant full compliance.
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Documenting the 'why' behind accessibility decisions within design systems reduces future misunderstandings and tech debt.
Notable Quotes
"Accessibility is innovation and this statement could potentially be some unchecked ableism."
"Automation only catches maybe 30% of all your a11y defects and even then we still receive a lot of false positives."
"I as an accessibility designer help you unlearn and relearn patterns so that you can build better products."
"If you can’t get past the hurdle of aversion to accessibility work, the rest of the content in this talk is irrelevant."
"A design system can create a precedent for inclusive product development across teams and partners."
"The biggest accessibility defect in breadcrumbs is using only color to convey meaning between active and parent pages."
"No component goes to developers without some sort of accessibility spec including keyboard interaction and screen reader announcements."
"You can have a single page that’s simultaneously inaccessible, compliant, accessible, and even innovative all at once."
"Small incremental changes are better than no changes at all from both process and technical views."
"Accessibility is a key component of user experience that has been neglected in digital product creation and requires specialists to close the gap."
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