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
"Synthetic data is useful because it’s easier to generate more examples of something you already have than to create entirely new data."
Peter Van DijckBuilding impactful AI products for design and product leaders, Part 2: Evals are your moat
July 23, 2025
"We started analytics at the beginning so we could benchmark and compare old and new site performance."
Mackenzie Cockram Sara Branco Cunha Ian FranklinIntegrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research from Discovery to Live
December 16, 2022
"Grandmas provide grounding, resilience, and long-term perspective often through rituals and storytelling."
Gina MendoliaTherapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems
December 3, 2024
"We found a three percent decrease in time to market using our design system, which translates into measurable business savings."
Gonzalo GoyanesDesign ROI: Cover a Little, Get a Lot
September 8, 2022
"Organizational cracks and rickety bridges between teams are signals that design ops is needed here."
John CalhounHave we Reached Our Peak? Spotting the Next Mountain For DesignOps to Climb
October 1, 2021
"The viruses don't discriminate based on race, but our healthcare system does."
Megan CamposWhat Did I Miss? The Hidden Costs of Deprioritizing Diversity in User Research
March 12, 2021
"Removing vague terms like understand from research plans and focusing on specific enabled behaviors improves goal clarity."
Zen RenTaking Inspiration from Instructional Design for Research
March 10, 2022
"We can’t design for every possible outcome anymore. We have to anticipate fuzzy ranges of results and channel behavior accordingly."
Josh Clark Veronika KindredSentient Design, AI, and the Radically Adaptive Experience (1st of 3 seminars)
January 15, 2025
"At the committed stage, executives start asking what design can do for business strategy."
JJ KercherA Roadmap for Maturing Design in the Enterprise
June 15, 2018
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How can design guidelines and brand semantics be encoded to help AI and engineering teams work together?
How does AI integration impact team burnout and workflow complexity in large design organizations?
What does the builder team model with AI in the loop look like compared to traditional product teams?