Rosenverse
DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility

Thursday, May 26, 2022 • DesignOps Community
Share the love for this talk
DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility
Speakers: Saara Kamppari-Miller
Link:

Summary

A lot of folks talk about accessibility and inclusive design, but have no clue how to bring it into product development practice. Join us for a conversation about different approaches to building operational support for inclusive design and accessibility practices. Panelists include Elliott Polette and Attiyya Akinwole from The Home Depot, Kalee Dankner and John Davenport from LinkedIn, and Mara Sohn who led on Pinterest’s accessibility efforts. Saara Kamppari-Miller, Inclusive DesignOps Program Manager at Intel, will host this panel.

Key Insights

  • Inclusive design is a process focused on recognizing exclusion, learning from diversity, solving for edge cases, and then scaling to many users, rather than a fixed result.

  • Leadership buy-in is crucial for prioritizing accessibility and securing resources for inclusive design initiatives.

  • Embedding accessibility specialists within design operations teams fosters consistent integration and education throughout the product lifecycle.

  • Quantifying accessibility through bug tracking dashboards, compliance scorecards, and peer review programs helps measure progress and raise awareness.

  • Peer reviews by accessibility-trained designers can elevate design quality and reduce engineering rework around accessibility issues.

  • Design systems with pre-approved accessible components streamline implementation but do not replace continuous training and education.

  • Grassroots efforts, including hackathons and empathy-building exercises, can launch accessibility programs in the absence of funding or dedicated staff.

  • Risk communication and competitive benchmarking are effective strategies to persuade leadership to invest in accessibility.

  • Accessibility ownership must be shared across product management, design, engineering, legal, and operations—not isolated to one group or individual.

  • Emerging accessibility areas needing attention include haptics and tactile technologies to support users with combined sensory disabilities.

Notable Quotes

"By designing products through the lens of edge cases like disabilities first, they often become better products for everyone."

"Accessibility is more of a process than a result; it starts at the very beginning of product development with research including disabled users."

"Leadership needs to be just as behind accessibility as the designers and professionals doing the work."

"One superpower of ops humans is making problems and gaps visible to build awareness and drive change."

"Tools are great, but they do not solve all problems; training and understanding the why behind accessibility is essential."

"Meeting designers where they spend their time, like integrating accessibility plugins into Figma, is the most effective way to make progress."

"Accessibility is a program, not just a single project; starting small and scaling efforts builds momentum."

"Nothing about us without us is the mantra we embrace when doing inclusive design operations."

"If you don't have dedicated accessibility people, start grassroots by building empathy and rallying teams around user stories."

"Accessibility ownership should never fall on just one person but be understood and shared across entire product teams."

Ask the Rosenbot
Wendy Johansson
An Education on Design Education for Orgs
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Katie Hansen
Finding the unknown in the known: Harnessing meta-analysis and literature review
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Uday Gajendar
The Rise of Meta-Design: A Starter Playbook
2022 • Enterprise Community
Patrick Neeman
Agent Standards Best Viewed in Every Assistant
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
You’ve got Gold! A Rosenverse demo with Lou Rosenfeld
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Caroline Jarrett
Have fun with statistics?
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Gina Mendolia
Therapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Chris Hammond
Embedding sustainability into enterprise design and development: A journey towards "sustainability consciousness"
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Bob Baxley
Leading with Design Operations Past and Present
2019 • DesignOps Community
Katy Mogal
But Do Your Insights Scale?
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Prabhas Pokharel
Order and Chaos: New Ways of Collaborating on Synthesis and Storytelling
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
David Cronin
The GE Design System and Thoughts about Craft at Scale
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Matt Webb
Context Window: Five Futures for AI
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
John Calhoun
Have we Reached Our Peak? Spotting the Next Mountain For DesignOps to Climb
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Boon Yew Chew
Making Sense of Systems—and Using Systems to Make Sense of the Enterprise
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Mark Boulton
Ops without Designers
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold

More Videos

Rachael Dietkus, LCSW

"We need integrity designers who are proactive and minimize the damage that is certain to happen in services we design."

Rachael Dietkus, LCSW

Trauma-Responsive Design: Reimagining the Future of Design Now

December 10, 2021

Robin Cannon

"The biggest difference is availability is just I can use this, usage guidance is I exist to do this and this."

Robin Cannon

AI means your design system can't suck anymore

September 9, 2026

Gina Mendolia

"In large complex systems, the dots are scattered across silos and time zones, making progress feel elusive."

Gina Mendolia

Therapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems

December 3, 2024

Sam Proulx

"At Fable, our platform lets you do generative and exploratory research with real assistive tech users remotely."

Sam Proulx

Understanding Screen Readers on Mobile: How And Why to Learn from Native Users

October 2, 2023

Bria Alexander

"The cohort experience is one of the highest rated things because you get to meet new people from different companies."

Bria Alexander

Opening Remarks

September 29, 2021

Stephen Pollard

"I am so glad to be part of this new design ops community and wish you all the best of success."

Stephen Pollard

Closing Keynote: Getting giants to dance - what can we learn from designing large and complex public infrastructure?

November 7, 2017

Cheryl Platz

"If you are altering any form of self-expression, you need to be really careful."

Cheryl Platz

Demystifying Multimodal Design: The Design Practice You Didn't Know You're Doing

April 4, 2024

Sam Proulx

"For screen reader users, you often need to build entirely new prototypes using systems like Microsoft Word or Google Docs to convey semantic information."

Sam Proulx

Prototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You

October 1, 2021

Dominique Ward

"Collaborating with cross-functional peers is where the juice happens—it’s paramount to our success in design ops."

Dominique Ward

The Most Exciting Time for DesignOps is Now

September 8, 2022