Vendor Management
Managed the relationship with our accessibility auditing and consulting vendor and helped connect audit findings, consulting expertise, and internal product teams.
Case Study
Accessibility Program Leadership
Building Awareness, Process, and Capability at Scale
Helping establish the practices, partnerships, and organizational capability needed to make enterprise software more accessible.
Overview
Accessibility had to become part of how we built software.
Making enterprise software accessible was not simply a matter of fixing individual UI issues. It required awareness, repeatable processes, technical knowledge, vendor support, and a shared understanding of why accessibility mattered.
I became a key contributor to that effort, helping move accessibility from a specialized concern toward a more consistent part of product development.
The Challenge
Accessibility work was distributed across people, products, and disciplines.
Knowledge varied
Developers, designers, and product teams had different levels of familiarity with accessibility requirements and techniques.
Standards were technical
Teams needed practical ways to translate accessibility standards into everyday design and engineering decisions.
Audits needed follow-through
External findings only created value when they could be understood, prioritized, and translated into product work.
Awareness had to grow
Accessibility needed visibility across the organization so that it was considered earlier rather than treated as a late-stage compliance task.
My Role
I helped build the operating system around accessibility.
My contribution focused on making accessibility easier for teams to understand, act on, and sustain.
I managed the relationship with our accessibility auditing vendor, our accessibility auditing and consulting vendor, and helped connect external expertise with the internal teams responsible for designing and building the product.
I also coordinated training for hundreds of developers and supported broader awareness efforts designed to make accessibility part of the organization’s shared product culture.
The goal was not just to identify accessibility issues. It was to help the organization become better at preventing and solving them.
What I Helped Establish
Capability across people, process, and partners.
Developer Training
Organized accessibility training for hundreds of developers so teams could build stronger knowledge and practical skills.
Awareness & Advocacy
Sponsored and supported awareness efforts that helped accessibility become more visible and better understood across the organization.
Process Development
Helped establish repeatable ways to incorporate accessibility reviews, findings, remediation, and guidance into product work.
Cross-Functional Coordination
Worked across UX, engineering, product, and external partners so accessibility work could move from recommendation to implementation.
Practical Enablement
Helped teams turn accessibility from an abstract standard into concrete design and development decisions.
The Model
From awareness to sustainable practice.
01
Raise Awareness
Make accessibility visible and connect it to product quality and customer needs.
02
Build Skills
Train developers and teams so accessibility knowledge exists inside the organization.
03
Assess
Use expert audits and reviews to identify barriers and risk areas.
04
Act
Translate findings into understandable, prioritized product and engineering work.
05
Improve
Use what teams learn to strengthen future design and development practices.
Outcome
Accessibility became more actionable and more embedded in the organization.
The work helped create stronger awareness, better internal capability, and more repeatable processes around accessible software development.
Rather than relying entirely on specialist intervention, teams had more knowledge, clearer support, and better connections to expert guidance.
This experience reinforced an important lesson: accessibility programs succeed when organizations invest not only in audits and standards, but also in people, education, process, and sustained ownership.