Scaling Accessibility Through Design Systems
Summary
Incorporating accessibility can be seen as a daunting task, especially for products that have already been released. Alexis Lucio, Senior Accessibility Lead at Splunk, will share her journey in making accessibility a first-class citizen within Splunk Design System. Topics include: how to advocate for accessibility, utilizing use cases to optimize design and dev, how to utilize user input, and ideas on how to collaborate with cross-functional partners.
Key Insights
-
•
Accessibility should be integrated early ('shift left') in the design and development process to reduce tech debt and remediation costs.
-
•
Automation tools catch about 30% of accessibility defects and cannot replace human audits and discernment.
-
•
Accessibility is often mistaken as limiting creativity, but it is actually a driver of innovation and inclusivity.
-
•
Unique naming for components like message bars is critical to avoid confusion for assistive technologies when multiple instances exist.
-
•
Breadcrumb navigation must not rely on color alone to convey meaning; it should be accessible through keyboard and screen readers and consider interactive behaviors.
-
•
Documenting accessibility decisions in design systems helps maintain consistency and educates users of the system.
-
•
Accessibility requires ongoing education and advocacy to get buy-in from diverse teams including designers, engineers, and product managers.
-
•
Small incremental changes to accessibility are better than no changes; it’s an ongoing journey rather than a one-time fix.
-
•
Accessibility levels range from inaccessible to legally compliant, usable, and ultimately innovative; compliance alone does not guarantee good UX.
-
•
Cross-functional collaboration and shared resources like accessibility one-pagers and bug-triaging spreadsheets improve scalability of accessibility efforts.
Notable Quotes
"Accessibility is innovation and this statement could potentially be some unchecked ableism."
"Automation only catches maybe 30% of all your a11y defects and even then we still receive a lot of false positives."
"I help you unlearn and relearn patterns so that you can build better products."
"If you’d rather exclude a group of people from using your product than do accessibility, then think about the impact you’re making."
"You can have a single page that’s got inaccessible, compliant, and accessible experiences all in one."
"No design system will ever be fully accessible because new features and permutations are always being introduced."
"Accessibility is a key component of user experience that has been neglected and requires specialists to close the gap."
"Small incremental changes are better than no changes at all from both the process and technical view."
"We’ve been taught to build fast and break things, and we often play accessibility on the back burner."
"Unique names for components like message bars are crucial, especially when multiple instances are shown at once."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"AI is like my coach. It’s like my bench player. It’s on my team, but you can’t rely on one player."
Tom Armitage Carla Diana Kanene Ayo HolderDay 2 Panel: Looking ahead: Designing with AI in 2026
June 11, 2025
"Poverty isn’t the absence of money. Poverty is the absence of relationships."
Victor UdoewaResearch in the Pluriverse
March 29, 2023
"Deliberate documentation can be the decider between something being useful in the future or not."
Jon White Erin MayUnsticking Research for Better Information Flow
March 11, 2026
"What if the atomic unit of research wasn’t the reports, but it was the insight within those reports?"
Matt DuignanAtomizing Research: Trend or Trap
March 30, 2020
"Some situations are not worth saving. If you have no champion, no clarity, and no purpose, is it worth it to continue?"
Shahrzad SamadzadehWhat Is My Value? Two Takes and Some Mistakes
January 8, 2024
"We’re users of the system. We have to make sure it works well for us for it to work well for others."
Russ UngerGetting Out from Under Everyone: How to Escape the Paralysis of Getting Started
June 8, 2016
"Accessibility audits check the box for compliance; usability testing ensures a good user experience."
Elana Chapman Li Wen Huang Divyen Sanganee Annabel WeinerGetting started with accessibility research
February 20, 2025
"Our AI tool doesn’t learn from ongoing use due to regulatory constraints, which led to user frustration when performance didn’t improve."
Jennifer KongJourneying toward AI-assisted documentation in healthcare
June 5, 2024
"Accessibility defects are bugs. If it’s a P1 blocking bug for an accessibility issue, treat it like any other P1 bug."
Sheri Byrne-HaberAccessibility at Scale
June 9, 2021
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
Why is acting on survey feedback challenging in organizations?
What human oversight processes are necessary to ensure the accuracy and relevance of AI-enhanced research repositories?
How does including metadata like methodology, market, and date improve the quality of research repository search results?