Beyond accessibility basics
Charting a path for the GOV.UK Design System
Slides and resources
Hi, I’m David
I was working in London
Now I’m back
in Toronto
I work on
design systems,
I work on
design systems,
web accessibility
I work on
design systems,
web accessibility
and product design.
Past design systems:
Current design system:
Note: opinions expressed are my own.
This talk does not represent the opinions or policies of any organization.
I like space and physics.
My goal is to
massively improve things that matter.
Massively improve:
For things that matter:
But… how?
For now,
design systems
Vibe check
Websites as
numerous
as the stars
Websites as
inaccessible
as the stars
The WebAIM ‘Million’ evaluation works as a gauge of the web’s general accessibility over time.
In the 2023 report, 96.3%
of the homepages evaluated
had at least 1 WCAG failure.
Over 4 years, the pace of improvement has averaged 0.375% per year.
I want to accelerate that pace.
Today I’d like to share a story.
A story in 7 acts:
Act 1. To accessibility and beyond
Starting in a new accessibility role
Joining the GOV.UK Design System crew
A dream come true!
But also, a big adjustment.
The GOV.UK Design System is:
Components, patterns and guidance
The GOV.UK Design System is:
Components, patterns and guidance
that help teams design and develop
The GOV.UK Design System is:
Components, patterns and guidance
that help teams design and develop
consistent, usable and accessible services
The GOV.UK Design System is:
Components, patterns and guidance
that help teams design and develop
consistent, usable and accessible services
for the GOV.UK ecosystem.
If websites are stars,
a design system is a stellar nursery.
Setting services up for success
Setting services up for success
Setting services up for success
It’s a solidly accessible design system.
It’s a mature
design system.
The role had lots of autonomy.
The role had lots of autonomy.
But little direction.
The team’s so talented!
They had great ideas.
All weighed down
by a question.
Act 2. The ultimate
question
The question that blocked progress
“What’s the priority?”
A solid baseline of web accessibility ruled out easy answers.
Two types of prioritization needed:
Two types of prioritization needed:
Ideas for accessibility work (part 1):
Ideas for accessibility work (part 2):
Ideas for accessibility work (part 3):
Ideas for accessibility work (part 4):
They’re all excellent ideas.
But what’s the priority?
Well, it’s a trick question.
“It depends”
It depends on the team’s:
We had the permission to approach this question properly.
For a large and mature
design system, making a
quick decision isn’t as helpful
as making the right decision.
And so that was the situation:
I did what I often do: started thinking about strategy.
Info to consider when deciding priorities (part 1):
Info to consider when deciding priorities (part 2):
Let’s make an accessibility strategy
And let’s do it collaboratively
Act 3. Set a course for answers
Our approach to the problem
First step: let the team know what I was going to do.
Then, draft a rough plan.
A practical document
The document needed to cover:
A ‘strategy’ did seem like good branding.
Three drafts:
The first draft
The first draft proposed:
The team reviewed the first draft, adding comments, ideas, and suggested edits.
The big win: team decisions
The second draft
The second draft focused on:
Colleagues across the Government Digital Service reviewed the second draft.
The big win: setting principles
The third draft
The third draft focused on:
People from across the UK Government reviewed the third draft.
The big win: public collaboration
Time to publish
Act 4. We have liftoff
The resulting accessibility strategy
We published on our site
We also wrote a blog post for the launch
The prioritization results
6 priority levels (part 1):
6 priority levels (part 2):
Highest priority activities:
Priority level 2 activities:
Priority level 3 activities:
Priority level 4 activities:
Priority level 5 activities:
Priority level 6 activities:
Let’s summarize
the impact
3 things the strategy achieved:
3 side benefits of the process:
3 calculated risks taken:
Act 5. Boldly going
Implementing the strategy
What came next?
Doing the work.
And we sure did!
It was a highly successful year for web accessibility on the design system team
A lot of the rapid progress was thanks to accessibility work being prioritized by our:
Largest piece of accessibility work:
Updating our design system code and guidance to align with WCAG 2.2.
Started in January 2023.
6+ streams of WCAG 2.2 work,
often running in parallel.
It required collaboration between several disciplines.
Act 6. A trip
around the sun
What happened in the first year
Improved web accessibility,
ahead of schedule
Fully completed:
WCAG 2.2 updates launched 3 months early
Made surprising progress on:
Made minor iterations on:
And wildly unexpected success on:
Documentation:
a generation starship
Helping future team members
The next accessibility specialist gets:
Act 7. Don’t panic
Final lessons learned
1. Make it practical
2. Don’t shy away
from making decisions
as a team
3. Embrace public and phased drafts
4. Web accessibility is big, so prioritize
5. State what you’re not going to do,
and why
P.S.
Come get a sticker!
Questions
and thank you!