Accessibility

Accessibility isn’t just a best practice, it’s a necessity. Over 1 billion people worldwide live with a disability, and nearly 15% of the global population experiences some form of impairment that affects how they interact with digital products. From vision and motor impairments to cognitive and auditory disabilities, inaccessible design can create unnecessary barriers that exclude millions of users. By prioritizing accessibility, we not only ensure compliance with standards like WCAG but also create more inclusive, user-friendly experiences that benefit everyone. A well-designed, accessible product doesn’t just accommodate those with disabilities, it enhances usability for all users, improving engagement, efficiency, and overall satisfaction.

At Ivanti, accessibility wasn’t a major focus outside of the UX team, that is, until it became a business requirement. Many government and EU contracts began mandating VPATs (Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates), and without them, deals were blocked. Since UX had always considered accessibility in our design process, the responsibility naturally fell on our team. This created a key opportunity to educate the broader organization on the importance of accessibility and establish structured processes to embed accessibility from design through development.

To drive awareness and build accessibility expertise, we spearheaded monthly learning sessions called "Curb Cuts", where designers and I shared best practices, research, and real-world applications of accessible design. Additionally, we conducted accessibility assessments with third-party vendors like LevelAccess and Aubergine, ensuring our products met compliance standards. Our UX designers took the lead in fixing design-related accessibility violations while also creating PBIs (Product Backlog Items) for engineering teams to address non-design-related issues.

Beyond just meeting compliance requirements, we worked to bake accessibility into our design system (IDS) by providing best practices and implementation guidelines for engineers. This ensured that accessibility wasn’t just an afterthought but an integral part of our design and development workflows, ultimately leading to more inclusive and user-friendly products.