In the beginning, Shutterfly got sued over accessibility compliance, and this started as a project to merely "cover our bases". But then my uneducated eyes were opened to the importance of A11Y.
Here are my accessibility-related achievements during my time with Shutterfly.
THE GUIDE
Spearheaded the creation of this accessibility guide:
•Drove the ability for SFLY to be AA compliant.
•Created the company’s only source of truth.
•Reduced design and tech debt.
•Acts as a learning and knowledge-sharing hub across the board.
•Helps the team to navigate the thicket of this world with:
A) Best practices.
B) Breakdowns by components.
C) Emphasis on understanding the intention behind the guide.
D) Expect the reader NOT to read the whole thing with intentional redundancies.
•Created the company’s only source of truth.
•Reduced design and tech debt.
•Acts as a learning and knowledge-sharing hub across the board.
•Helps the team to navigate the thicket of this world with:
A) Best practices.
B) Breakdowns by components.
C) Emphasis on understanding the intention behind the guide.
D) Expect the reader NOT to read the whole thing with intentional redundancies.
All modes were considered
Every component has an A11Y entry
Each state is WCAG AA compliant
Empowering and unblocking
•Ran a monthly session
A) Educate the design team with Dos and Don'ts.
B) Aligning knowledge expectations.
C) Expected level of handoff A11Y fidelity.
•Ran a quarterly session
A) Educate and refresh the engineering team with Dos and Don'ts.
B) Educate the engineering team about the "why", the need for these implementations.
•Proactively asserted myself on team project calls and roadmap talks.
•Proactively scanned the sprints for A11Y improvement opportunities.
•Built the Design System to have A11Y baked-in from day 0.
A) Educate the design team with Dos and Don'ts.
B) Aligning knowledge expectations.
C) Expected level of handoff A11Y fidelity.
•Ran a quarterly session
A) Educate and refresh the engineering team with Dos and Don'ts.
B) Educate the engineering team about the "why", the need for these implementations.
•Proactively asserted myself on team project calls and roadmap talks.
•Proactively scanned the sprints for A11Y improvement opportunities.
•Built the Design System to have A11Y baked-in from day 0.
