GSA needed a reliable way to deliver accessible digital experiences across multiple internal and public‑facing applications. I helped establish an accessibility‑first design system and operating model that reduced retrofits and created a shared language between design, engineering, and compliance.
Multiple teams were shipping applications with similar components—tables, modals, navigation—but each implementation behaved differently for keyboard and screen reader users. Accessibility reviews were happening at the end of the lifecycle, often resulting in costly rework and delayed launches.
- Standardize core UI patterns with accessible defaults.
- Give product teams practical guidance instead of abstract WCAG checklists.
- Make it easy to document and communicate compliance via VPAT/ACR artifacts.
Working with product owners, engineers, and the 508 office, I treated accessibility as a systems problem.
- Inventoried existing UI patterns across applications and identified the highest‑risk components.
- Designed accessible variants of those components and documented behavior, keyboard flows, and ARIA usage in Figma and written specs.
- Partnered with front‑end engineers to implement a React‑based component library with unit tests for keyboard interaction and ARIA attributes.
- Created lightweight reference VPAT language tied directly to the component library to simplify reporting.
Instead of asking teams to memorize WCAG, we baked the standards into the system.
- Provided copy‑and‑paste examples for error messaging, focus management, and status updates.
- Ran hands‑on sessions where engineers debugged issues using screen readers, not just automated tools.
- Established a “no orphan components” rule: any new UI added to the system had to ship with accessibility documentation and examples.