Designing for accessibility from day one
Devin · 2026-03-10
Accessibility isn't a checklist you bolt on at the end. It's a set of habits that make your product better for every user.
Most teams treat accessibility as a final audit before launch. By then it's too late — the colours are picked, the components are built, and a fix is a refactor.
Bake it in early
We treat accessibility as a design constraint from the very first wireframe. Colour contrast, focus order, and keyboard navigation are decided alongside the layout, not after it.
The cost of waiting
A retrofit costs three to five times what early integration does. Worse, the result is usually a workaround rather than a clean solution.
What we always check
Before any page ships, we run through a fixed list:
- Every interactive element is reachable with the keyboard alone.
- Every image has either alt text or is explicitly marked decorative.
- Body text contrast is at least 4.5:1 against the background.
- Focus rings are visible on a non-default background colour.
- Animations respect the user's
prefers-reduced-motionsetting.
Accessibility done well is invisible — it just feels like good design.
None of these are hard. They just need to be habits, not afterthoughts.