Your Accessibility System

Everything Together

🔄 Quick Recall: Over seven lessons, you built individual skills: understanding assistive technologies, auditing for WCAG compliance, creating accessible content, designing for cognitive differences, building inclusive interactions, and testing with real users. Now you’ll connect them into a sustainable accessibility program that keeps improving over time.

The goal isn’t to achieve perfect accessibility once. It’s to build systems where accessibility is part of how your organization builds things — as natural as version control, code review, and performance monitoring.

Your Accessibility Program

Here’s how every component connects:

Building the Accessibility Workflow

Help me design an accessibility program for my organization.

Organization size: [small/medium/large]
Product type: [website/app/SaaS/e-commerce/content site]
Current state: [no accessibility work / some / established program]
Team: [X developers, X designers, X content creators]
Budget for accessibility: [limited / moderate / significant]

Design a phased program:

PHASE 1 — FOUNDATION (Month 1-2):
- Automated scanning in CI/CD pipeline
- Fix critical issues on top 5 user paths
- Basic team training (2-hour workshop)
- Establish accessibility checklist for code review

PHASE 2 — CONTENT (Month 3-4):
- Audit and fix all image alt text
- Add captions to video content
- Establish content creation guidelines
- AI-assisted content accessibility workflow

PHASE 3 — COMPREHENSIVE (Month 5-6):
- Full-site manual audit
- Keyboard navigation fixes across all features
- ARIA implementation for complex components
- First user testing session with AT users

PHASE 4 — SUSTAIN (Ongoing):
- Quarterly manual audits
- Bi-annual user testing
- New hire accessibility onboarding
- Continuous automated monitoring
- Annual accessibility statement update

For each phase: deliverables, estimated effort, and
success metrics.

The Definition of Done

The most powerful tool for sustaining accessibility is adding it to your team’s definition of done — the criteria every feature must meet before it ships.

Accessibility Definition of Done

✅ Quick Check: Why is “automated scan passes” necessary but not sufficient as a definition of done? Because automated scans catch only ~30% of accessibility issues — the structural, binary pass/fail checks. A feature can pass every automated check while having an illogical tab order, meaningless screen reader experience, or confusing error handling. The definition of done must include both automated checks (fast, consistent) AND manual verification (keyboard test, screen reader check) to cover the full accessibility spectrum.

Team Roles and Training

Help me design accessibility roles for my team.

Team structure:
- [X] developers
- [X] designers
- [X] content creators
- [X] product managers
- [X] QA testers

Define responsibilities by role:

DEVELOPERS:
- Semantic HTML, ARIA patterns, keyboard interaction
- Write automated accessibility tests
- Fix issues flagged in audits
- Training needed: WCAG for developers, ARIA patterns

DESIGNERS:
- Color contrast in design tokens
- Touch target sizes, focus state design
- Cognitive load in layouts
- Training needed: inclusive design principles

CONTENT CREATORS:
- Alt text, heading structure, plain language
- Caption workflows for media
- Document accessibility (PDF, Word)
- Training needed: content accessibility, AI tools

PRODUCT MANAGERS:
- Accessibility in requirements and user stories
- Budget for user testing with disabled users
- Accessibility as a priority alongside features
- Training needed: business case, legal requirements

QA TESTERS:
- Manual keyboard and screen reader testing
- Accessibility test cases in test plans
- User testing coordination
- Training needed: assistive technology basics

For each role, recommend specific training resources
and a 1-hour workshop outline.

Handling Organizational Pushback

Common objections and evidence-based responses:

The Accessibility Statement

Help me write an accessibility statement for our website.

Our current state:
- WCAG conformance level: [A / AA / partial AA]
- Known issues: [list any known accessibility gaps]
- Testing methods: [what testing we do]
- Feedback mechanism: [how users can report issues]

The statement should include:
1. Our commitment to accessibility
2. Standards we follow (WCAG 2.1 Level AA)
3. Current conformance status (honest assessment)
4. Known limitations and timeline to fix
5. How to contact us about accessibility issues
6. How to request accessible alternatives
7. Date of last review

Tone: professional, honest, committed. Don't overclaim.
If we have known issues, acknowledge them with
a timeline to address.

Implementation Roadmap

Week 1-2: Quick wins

• Add automated accessibility scanning to CI/CD
• Fix missing alt text on top 10 pages
• Add skip-to-content link
• Check and fix color contrast on primary UI

Month 1: Critical paths

• Audit and fix top 5 user journeys for keyboard + screen reader
• Establish code review accessibility checklist
• Train development team (2-hour workshop)

Month 2-3: Content

• AI-assisted alt text for all product/service images
• Add captions to all video content
• Implement plain language guidelines for public content

Month 3-6: Comprehensive

• Full manual audit by accessibility specialist
• First user testing session with AT users
• Fix all critical and high-priority issues
• Publish accessibility statement

Ongoing: Sustain

• Automated testing on every PR
• Quarterly manual spot-checks
• Bi-annual user testing
• New hire accessibility onboarding
• Annual full audit and statement update

Key Takeaways

From this course, you now know how to:

• Understand the assistive technology landscape and what users with different disabilities need from digital experiences (Lesson 2)
• Audit websites and documents for WCAG compliance using AI-powered tools and generate prioritized remediation plans (Lesson 3)
• Create accessible content at scale — meaningful alt text, accurate captions, structured documents, and plain language (Lesson 4)
• Design for cognitive accessibility — supporting neurodiverse users with executive function aids, simplified content, and adaptive interfaces (Lesson 5)
• Build inclusive interactions — accessible forms, navigation, error states, and complex components with keyboard and screen reader support (Lesson 6)
• Test accessibility continuously across three layers: automated scanning, manual expert review, and user testing with assistive technology users (Lesson 7)
• Sustain an accessibility program through organizational culture — definition of done, team training, and continuous improvement processes (This lesson)

The most important takeaway: Accessibility isn’t a feature you add — it’s a quality dimension of everything you build. AI makes it dramatically more practical to achieve accessibility at scale, but the foundation is a team that considers every user from the start, not as an afterthought.

Congratulations on completing the course! Claim your certificate and start with the highest-impact first step: audit your top 3 user paths for keyboard and screen reader accessibility this week.