Airlines Reporting Corporation - Flight Design System

When I first joined ARC, there was an existing design system, but very much in its infancy. One of my first tasks was to perform an audit; not just for inconsistencies and opportunities to develop new components, but more importantly, an audit around accessibility.

I managed the design system governance process alongside a front-end engineer.

• The funny thing about this experience is that the moment I began the accessibility audit, one of our product owners informed me that our only government-facing product was currently under scrutiny for failing to meet 508 compliance. I just love how we were able to say “We’re on it!” when we already were.
• The design system leveraged Bootstrap for some accessibility measures. I collaborated with our front-end engineer to implement the others. This included fixing contrast errors, link styles, text sizes, inputs, and adding focus and active states. We also held frequent audits and trainings to emphasize the importance of accessibility measures with our engineers, because accessibility must be considered by the whole team. There are a lot of engineering considerations. I strongly advocated for the benefit of individuals with both permanent and temporary disabilities, as well as the threat of lawsuits if our applications don’t allow our customers to complete their tasks.