Transforming Team Culture Through Accessibility Leadership
Overview
We partnered with a regional agency responsible for integrating seven transit systems across the Puget Sound area—connecting buses, light rail, water taxis, and ferries under a single account and payment platform. The goal: modernize the website and launch a mobile app that allowed riders to manage their account, add funds, and pay fares directly from their phone.
Given the diversity of the rider base—including individuals with visual, mobility, cognitive, and other disabilities—accessibility wasn’t a feature; it was a requirement. From the beginning, our goal was to create an inclusive digital experience that could serve every rider with confidence, clarity, and dignity.
My role
This was a multi-year, two-phase engagement that included both a full website redesign and the creation of a new consumer mobile app.
In Phase One, I contributed as a UX designer on a team of six, helping shape the foundation of the digital experience.
In Phase Two, I stepped into a co-leadership role alongside Chris Hannon, overseeing the strategy, experience design, and delivery of the mobile app.
Throughout both phases, I served as the accessibility lead, guiding both our internal team and our client toward inclusive design practices.
Accessibility Leadership
Recognizing a significant gap in accessibility expertise on the team, I took it upon myself to close that gap. I attended a national accessibility conference, took specialized courses, and participated in local accessibility meetups.
I applied this expertise in several ways:
Trained and mentored both designers and developers on accessible design patterns, tools, and WCAG 2.1 compliance
Integrated accessibility into every phase of the design and development process
Advocated for and helped implement inclusive testing protocols, including screen reader and keyboard-only testing
Established accessibility as a core design principle, not a checklist item
This work led to a major cultural shift within our team and had a lasting impact on how accessibility was approached in future projects at Smashing Ideas.
Impact
Successfully delivered a modern, accessible website and mobile app that enabled seamless account management and fare payment across seven transit systems
Led accessibility efforts that ensured both platforms adhered to WCAG 2.1 AA standards
Educated and empowered cross-functional teams, improving accessibility practices beyond the scope of this project
Helped set a new standard for inclusive design within the agency and our organization
Contributed to the app achieving a 92% customer satisfaction (CSAT) score post-launch
Accessibility woven in from beginning to end
Planning & Discovery – Determine early on how we would weave accessibility into every phase of the project and set the team up with training and guidelines for how we would achieve that goal.
UX & Design – Clear hierarchy, large tap targets, simple to understand language, and minimal design contributed to an easy and intuitive experience for all.
Testing – We tested with users of all abilities to uncover usability and accessibility issues and fix them prior to launch.
QA – Once the app was developed, we tested the app using automated tools as well as doing a manual audit to determine if the app was functional from an accessibility standpoint.
Planning and Discovery
Planning – Determine what level of accessibility needed to be met from a legal standpoint and create a plan for how accessibility would be achieved. What will we do, how will we do it, and which guidelines are we following?
Training – Find out the level of accessibility knowledge throughout the team and hold training sessions to make sure we understood what WCAG 2.1 AA standards were and how to meet this level. This also includes at the stakeholder level as well – teach them why they should care.
Research – Interview users of all abilities to gain first-hand knowledge of how they interact with transit apps.
Externalize – Archetypes were created to represent a vast array of rider types including riders that had vision or cognitive impairments. We also created design principles specific to this project that helped keep the team aligned and focused on accessibility – ie. Keep it simple
UX & Design
During the UX and design phase, it was important to ensure foundational elements adhered to WCAG guidelines and were outlined within the design system.
Color contrast – The brand colors were provided by the client, but our team needed to determine which color combinations would provide adequate contrast to be seen with riders that had low vision or color blindness.
Text size and Spacing- Text size and line-height spacing is defined at this stage to increase readability. Spacing between elements is key to ensure riders that have mobility or vision impairments can tap a button or link and not unintentionally select another element.
Hierarchy of elements – Layout of the content and calls to action are important at this stage. We want to purposefully reduce cognitive overload and create a space where it is clear why the user is here and what they should be doing/consuming.
Testing
After usability testing and app updates, we were ready to test the app with blind users to understand how screen readers (VoiceOver and TalkBack) worked on their devices.
Expert Review - Before we initiated the test, we performed an expert review of the app using the assistive technology tools native to iOS and Android devices. Our goal was to fix as many usability and accessibility issues prior to our recruited testers using the app. Our development team then made the recommended fixes and we proceeded to the testing phase.
Testing with users - We recruited users that relied on a range of assistive technology on iOS and Android. After 2 days of remote testing, we were able to synthesize the data, group the findings by severity level, and make clear recommendations about how to improve the app.
Accessibility Quality Assurance
Now that our development team had implemented the recommended changes from the accessibility test, it was time to conduct QA testing on the app. To ensure the app was meeting WCAG criteria, the best option for testing accessibility was to combine both automated and manual testing.
QA preparation – We identified the unique template screens and each unique state of a screen so that we could ensure all interactions within the app would be tested on iOS and Android.
Automated testing – For our automated testing we used tools specific to each OS to test for alt text, color contrast, screen titles, form labels and tap target sizing.
Expert manual testing – Since automated testing will only catch a limited number of errors, we also used manual testing to ensure that the app was accessible using a screen reader. We tested for accurate alt text, whether information was presented in a logical order, actual color contrast, form error messaging and consistent navigation.
