Accessible Design Strategies
In this chapter, you’ll learn how to build accessibility into every stage of your design process, from research and design systems to prototyping, testing, and documentation. You’ll explore practical strategies for understanding user needs, structuring content, and collaborating across teams to ensure accessibility is never an afterthought. By the end, you’ll know how to design accessibly and create products that are both usable and equitable by design.
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What are Accessible Design Strategies?
An accessible design strategy is a planned, high-level approach to creating digital products and content that are usable by people of all abilities. These strategies are focused on embedding accessibility into the design process from the start, including research, prototyping, documentation, and testing, and aligns with standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and accessibility laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), the European Accessibility Act (EAA), and Section 508.
Adopting accessible design strategies enables organizations to enhance the user experience, expand their reach to more audiences, and mitigate legal risk, while ensuring their digital content is inclusive, equitable, and compliant.
Example of an Accessible Design Strategy
Here’s what an accessible website design strategy might look like in an organization.
The design team begins by researching and understanding how users with disabilities interact with digital content, and then designs content accordingly. They involve users with disabilities in the testing process to ensure that designs are effective.
During the actual design process, designers follow accessible design best practices (which we’ll discuss in Chapter 3), including using accessible color palettes, clear typography, and consistent navigation patterns. During development, they collaborate closely with engineers to ensure all components meet WCAG standards.
Finally, before launching content, they conduct accessibility audits and assistive technology testing to confirm the product works for everyone.
This process is built into every project to ensure all new content meets accessibility standards before launch.
What is an accessible design strategy?
Remember, an accessible design strategy is more than a single design choice. It's something that ensures accessibility is part of every design stage.
Understanding Users and Context
Designing for accessibility begins with understanding your users, their needs, behaviors, and the environments in which they interact with your product. When you design with empathy, you create digital experiences that are usable and enjoyable for everyone.
Below, we’ll explain how to gain an understanding of users with disabilities, create accessibility-informed personas, and conduct real-world user testing.
Understanding Users with Disabilities
Understanding users with disabilities means learning how people with different abilities navigate, perceive, and interact with your content. This includes individuals who use assistive technologies such as screen readers, magnifiers, voice input, or switch controls. The goal is to identify barriers early and design solutions that make interaction intuitive and inclusive.
AudioEye Learning
Want to learn more about how users with disabilities interact with digital content? Check out Chapter 2 of AudioEye Learning’s Web Accessibility 101 Course.
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Defining Project Deliverables and Requirements
Before you can start designing, it’s essential to define the project's deliverables and requirements, while keeping accessibility in mind. This includes understanding what functionality your digital content will include, such as forms, accordions, tables, interactive buttons, PDFs, and other components, and documenting exactly how each of these components should behave for all users.
Clear documentation should cover;
Functionality: What each feature does and how it should behave, including accessibility expectations.
Tools and technologies: The software, libraries, or frameworks the team will use, and how they support accessibility.
Content types: Structured text, images, videos, downloadable PDFs, or other media, and how each content type will be made accessible.
Standards and guidelines: Standards such as WCAG, Section 508, or other relevant laws or internal guidelines should be implemented into project deliverables.
Testing requirements: How each feature will be evaluated for accessibility during development and before launch.
Defining these deliverables upfront ensures all content creators, including designers, developers, and copywriters, are aligned on accessibility expectations and goals. This proactive approach reduces the likelihood of accessibility gaps or barriers being introduced into your content, thereby minimizing the need for redesigns. More simply, it creates the foundation for an inclusive product.
Why should you define project deliverables before the design process?
Remember, clear deliverables make sure accessibility goals are understood before design begins.
Conducting User Research
Observing real users with disabilities helps uncover challenges that automated tools or assumptions might miss. Effective research can include interviews, task observation, and usability testing to gain firsthand insight into how users navigate your products. The insights gained from this research help designers create designs that are functional, usable, and accessible.
Using Personas and Prototypes
Creating accessibility-informed personas and prototypes is a critical step in designing digital experiences that work for everyone. Here’s how to create them.
Personas
Personas are fictional but research-based representations of your users, designed to reflect their goals, behaviors, and challenges. When you include users with disabilities in your personas, such as people who use assistive technology or keyboard users, your team keeps accessibility front and center throughout the design process. These personas help guide design decisions, prioritize features, and anticipate barriers before they appear in the product.
Prototypes
Prototypes enable teams to test design ideas early, before development begins, thereby reducing the need for expensive rework later. They can range from low-fidelity sketches to interactive digital versions, providing designers with a tangible way to explore layouts, interactions, and workflows.
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Woman performs user test with a "Wizard" behind a green curtain orchestrating the prototype effects
A screen reader prototyping method is the Wizard of Oz (WoZ) study. The approach involves a user interacting with what appears to be a fully functioning interface or system. Behind the scenes, a human “wizard” simulates responses or behaviors the actual system will automate in the future. This allows you to test features that aren’t fully developed yet, which is particularly useful for accessibility features such as voice navigation, screen reader interaction flows, or alternative input methods.
Example
Imagine you’re designing a mobile form submission feature for users who navigate only via keyboard or voice. Instead of waiting until all voice-recognition logic is built, you conduct a WoZ study: a user uses voice commands like “Next field,” “Read last answer,” or “Submit form.” Meanwhile, a researcher behind the scenes triggers those commands manually, simulating the feature.
Through this test, your team discovers that some voice commands navigate only forward, not backward, which can be confusing to users. You also find that the focus indicator isn’t obvious, so your participants get stuck. Using these insights, you can then update your prototype to include spoken error cues and more visible focus indicators. This ultimately helps you refine your prototype and create something that’s accessible and usable for people with a wide range of abilities.
Why is it important to create user personas and prototypes?
Remember the overall goal of accessibility.
What is a Wizard of Oz study?
Remember, the name comes from something (or someone) working behind a curtain.
Document Structure and Content
Another key part of creating an accessible design strategy is building accessibility into your document structure and your content. Both are critical for usability and assistive technology compatibility. We’ll cover these best practices in more detail in chapter three, but a few key practices include:
Headings: Use proper hierarchy (H1-H6) to organize content logically for screen readers.
Links vs. buttons: Ensure links navigate and buttons perform actions as expected; avoid misusing elements.
Avoid “Div-itis”: Minimize any unnecessary wrapper elements that don’t serve a structural purpose, as they can complicate navigation for assistive technologies.
Consistent layouts: Repeatable structures across pages or components that help users easily navigate.
Tagged PDFs and documents: Ensure all downloadable content is structured and tagged correctly for assistive technology.
Creating proper document structure ensures users can navigate, understand, and interact with content independently, creating a smoother experience for all.
Which of the following are some of the best practices for creating accessible document structure?
Look at the options again. Think about which ones improve the experience for users with disabilities.
Testing and Iteration
One of the key things to remember about accessibility: it’s never “done.” Every change or new feature you add to your design requires thorough testing to ensure it meets accessibility standards. Key practices include:
Functional testing: Verify that forms, tables, accordions, and other interactive components work correctly with assistive technologies.
User testing: Include people with disabilities to identify real-world barriers that automated tools may not catch.
Design system verification: Test design components in context to verify they function correctly.
Iterative improvements: Use the insights you gain from each round of testing to refine your design.
By emphasizing well-structured content, rigorous testing, and iterative improvements, you can deliver digital products that are not only compliant but truly usable for everyone.
Key Takeaway
Even when design systems are built to be accessible, they still require thorough functional testing to ensure their accessibility. Components might seem to meet accessibility standards in isolation, but when brought into real-world projects, interactions, workflows, or integrations, they can create barriers. Regular testing ensures that these systems continue to deliver a consistent, inclusive experience across all pages and features.
Why is ongoing testing critical for accessible digital design?
Think about why accessibility barriers might appear even if your design or product is accessible in design/development processes.
Conclusion
By combining accessibility-informed design systems, well-defined project requirements, user-centered personas, structured content, and continuous testing, you can create digital products that truly work for everyone. Following the principles above can help you build a strategy that’s compliant with accessibility laws and guidelines and creates products that are usable, intuitive, and welcoming for all users.
KEEP LEARNING
Move to the next chapter: Accessible Design Best Practices.
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