Disney Accessibility Hub
The Accessibility Hub was a proof-of-concept—a website that served as a resource and guide on how to build accessibility into Disney’s digital product design process. I was brought on as project lead, and my role included assembling and guiding a volunteer design team, doing research and ideation, and developing a prototype to share with stakeholders.
The challenge was to figure out how to do accessibility organization-wide. How do new designers get onboarded? How do developers know their responsibilities? How could project managers know how to budget and plan for accessibility scans?
My Role
Team Lead
Research/Ideation
Web Prototyping (Bootstrap)
Learning Accessibility and Mapping a Journey
Having minimal background knowledge and experience in accessibility, the first thing I did was deep dive into the subject, learning everything I could about WCAG, best practices, and standards. I also looked at solutions and documentation by other organizations for inspiration (Vox Media, Microsoft, etc.)
Documenting and learning the WCAG guidelines
Inspiration from Vox Media’s company-wide guide.
Microsoft’s Inclusive Design documentation
In addition to acquiring a working knowledge, I identified team members in the organization who had the most experience on the subject, and we began to locate all of the existing artifact types available—style guides, case studies, accessibility tools, etc. The information was very fragmented and hidden, and different teams had their own systems and processes.
Once I got a handle on the content available, I created an accessibility journey—a path that all team members take—from introduction to project support.
A Central Location for All Things Accessibility
With the accessibility journey in place and an idea of how the information was organized, the structure provided a basic outline from which I was able to start creating a simple prototype website. For content, we assigned different team members to write and gather material for the sections, including onboarding, guides, a glossary, updates, and help.
Onboarding homepage example
Example case study for designers
Example specs guide for designers
WCAG guidelines for designers
Roadmap guide for project managers
Definitions guide for project managers
Accessibility within the greater design system