Having built Design Systems across various products and companies, the challenges faced have often looked different. However, the underlying process to follow in order to reach a successful design system rollout is largely the same.
In attending a recent presentation from Heather Hepburn on Accessibility at Skyscanner, she shared some final thoughts on how to drive accessibility standards across an organisation. As it turns out, the approach to tackling driving accessibility forward in an organisation and rolling out a design system has a lot of overlaps.
Top tips for successful adoption
Raise awareness
Get leadership buy-in
Make someone responsible
Build a Champions network
Educate everybody
Audit your products
Test with disabled people (or design system users)
Track metrics
Build into your process
Embed into your culture
Design systems enable accessibility
Not only is it great that the approach for rolling out accessibility is the same approach that can be followed for building your design system, but we should also understand that design systems inherently enable accessibility.
A product, or website, is made up of various styles and components laid out in a specific way. If that product or website uses a design system, a large part of the decision-making has been handed over to the system.
If the design system itself has not considered accessibility, anything that relies on it is in a less-than-optimal place. Or, put another way: shit flows downstream.
To prevent your poor users, standing at the mouth of the river, from a "shit experience" consider how you can push decisions and adoption right up to where key decisions are made. In doing so, you are not only building better products, but you are also building a more inclusive culture. That's a win for everybody.
Thoughts?
How are you tackling accessibility at your company? Is it something that you struggle with or is it baked in? Please share any thoughts or comments on the topic below and let me know if you’d like to dive deeper into the topic of systems and accessibility.
Powering this week's thoughts
Music plays such an important role when I am thinking, working, and reflecting. I also find it interesting to see what others are listening to. It's a gateway into an aspect of their personality. That's why I'd like to share, with each article, an artist or playlist that I have been listening to that week. Here's this week’s: