What 2024 taught me about design and accessibility
This past year has been full of learning, challenges, and growth. Accessibility became a central focus in my work, and earning the IAAP CPACC certification was a big milestone. But more importantly, I had the chance to apply that knowledge in real-world scenarios — starting with an internal audit of our in-house design system.
Since I work within the design system team, it felt like the most natural and impactful place to begin. The audit focused specifically on the design layer — reviewing how well our components aligned with WCAG guidelines and accessibility best practices.
Putting theory into practice wasn’t easy. While the certification covered principles, success criteria, and common failures, interpreting some of those criteria in real design scenarios was more complex than expected.
A few areas stood out as especially tricky:
- Color contrast on interactive states, like hover or focus borders
- Situations where multiple variables (theme modes, layering, shadows) affected perceived contrast
- Ambiguities around what “sufficient contrast” really means in edge cases
These challenges reminded me that accessibility isn’t always black and white — context matters. But they also made the work feel meaningful. It pushed me to have deeper conversations with devs, explore real user impact, and document findings that could help others on the team.
2024 was the year I stopped seeing accessibility as a checklist — and started seeing it as part of the system.