Bridging the Gap Between Compliance and Design Quality
Summary
Many designers experience accessibility as a compliance exercise disconnected from design practice. That's a design problem. After more than 20 years working in accessibility—including early accessibility projects, advocacy, education, and legislation efforts in Argentina—Santiago Bustelo believes that the missing piece is a better bridge between compliance and design practice. In this session, he shares insights, experiments, and lessons from IPAX, an ongoing research initiative exploring the gap between accessibility compliance and accessibility adoption. The session examines why accessibility is often perceived as bureaucratic by design teams, why pair-based validation does not scale well to modern Design Systems, and whether accessibility could become easier to adopt if it also helps designers produce better design outcomes.
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