Accessibility Program
Enterprise Accessibility at Scale Through Governance & Inclusive Design
18%
fewer critical defects in the first six months
Accelerated
delivery timelines by reducing late-stage blockers
Scalable governance
model adopted enterprise-wide
Legal Disclosure:
Client identity and materials are anonymized. Metrics reflect representative outcomes. Request a confidential walkthrough
Overview
Context
Challenge
- No governance or ownership model for accessibility
- Fragmented, reactive, and costly approaches
- Vendors lacked contractual obligations to meet standards
- Stakeholders viewed accessibility as expensive and time-consuming
Role
Design Operations & Accessibility Program Lead
- Designed the enterprise-wide accessibility program strategy
- Applied systems thinking to embed accessibility into governance, contracts, and workflows
- Aligned cross-functional leaders (legal, regulatory, procurement, delivery)
- Evangelized accessibility as an operational advantage, not a cost burden
Strategy & Execution
- Governance-first model: Established clear standards, roles, and responsibilities for accessibility across all teams.
- Cross-functional alignment: Partnered with legal, regulatory, procurement, and delivery leaders to embed accessibility into SOWs and approval workflows.
- Process integration: Introduced checkpoints (design, QA, VPAT reviews) to catch issues early and reduce late-stage blockers.
- Knowledge hub: Built self-service documentation, training, and KPI dashboards to scale accessibility practices.
- Shift-left approach: Moved accessibility testing upstream to reduce costs and defects.
- Evangelism: Ran training sessions, webinars, and updates to build awareness and sustain adoption.
Example: Regional Division Rollout
At the start, accessibility was pitched as a legal and ethical requirement, but this framing faced resistance, as teams saw it as a cost increase. By reframing accessibility as a way to reduce defects and accelerate delivery, leaders began to see operational value.
Working with procurement, legal, and regulatory teams, I helped rewrite vendor SOWs and approval workflows to include accessibility requirements by default. For example, vendors could no longer deliver code without documented accessibility compliance, and approval checkpoints required accessibility sign-off.
This shifted accessibility from a “nice-to-have” to a mandatory and scalable practice, built into contracts, processes, and team culture.
Outcomes
18%
reduction in defects in the first six months
Faster delivery
timelines by eliminating late-stage accessibility blockers
Improved vendor performance
through contractual obligations
Cultural shift:
accessibility treated as a shared responsibility, not an afterthought
FAQ
- How do you share specifics under NDA?
- I provide anonymized visuals and metrics. Detailed walkthroughs are available under NDA on a live call.
- How did you get leadership buy-in?
- By framing accessibility as an operational advantage, reducing costs, defects, and delivery risk, not just a compliance issue..
- How was success measured?
- By reductions in workflow time, communication incidents, and adoption of UX processes across departments.
- Is the approach transferable?
- Yes. The same research-driven, service design methodology applies to any industry with complex workflows and fragmented tools.
Case Studies
Global Healthcare
Global Healthcare Transformation Through Design Systems & Accessibility
A unified, governed design system with embedded accessibility scaled to 800+ digital properties. Accelerating delivery by 40% and reducing accessibility defects by 18%.
Fortune 500 Insurance
Design at Scale Through Enterprise Design System & Governance
An enterprise design system and governance model standardized patterns across 70+ digital properties. Reducing developer dependency by 60% and lowering delivery costs by 20%.
Accessibility Program
Enterprise Accessibility at Scale Through Governance & Inclusive Design
A governance-first accessibility program embedded inclusive design into planning, design, and QA. Enabling sustainable compliance, fewer defects, and faster, more consistent releases.
Logistics
Fleet Operations Optimization Through Ethnographic Research & Service Design
Ethnographic research and end-to-end service design re-architected fleet communication. Streamlining critical workflows, closing information gaps, and improving coordination at scale.