Actually Shifting Left: Technical Accessibility for Designers
summary
Argues designers should learn a limited set of technical accessibility skills — using tightly templated annotations for heading levels, text alternatives, focus management, and live regions — and annotate early then critique with engineers. Shows real misuses (labels turned into headings, tab stops forced on radio groups, ARIA labels overwriting link text) that make releases less accessible, explains the Figma-driven “materials knowledge” gap, and gives practical annotation templates that avoid prescribing specific code.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Introduction
- 8:55Designers need tech accessibility
- 13:29Problem with misapplied annotations
- 19:30Designers’ accessibility gap
- 24:47Effective annotation strategies
- 30:40Four key concepts to annotate
- 42:50Q&A: Citations and mistakes
- 44:56Q&A: Tools and collaboration
- 48:22Q&A: Avoid reading order
- 51:12Q&A: Avoid code solutions
- 55:23Q&A: Terminology and shifting left
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