ADA Compliance for Corp Site

Summary

A year-long initiative to build stakeholder buy-in, audit accessibility issues, and improve WCAG compliance across Southern Glazer's public website. Responsibilities included:

• Accessibility strategy

• UX design

• Accessibility audit

• Stakeholder presentations

• Cross-functional collaboration

• Design QA

• WCAG research

Details

Timeframe Q1 2025 - Q1 2026

Tools Figma, Lighthouse, DevTools

Role Digital Product Designer

Teams Digital Product Design, Development, Internal Communications

The Opportunity

I joined Southern Glazer’s Digital Product team in February 2025, the first member of a brand-new sub-team focused solely on the corporate website. When auditing the site for my personal edification, I quickly picked up on the low contrast between buttons and background colors.

This prompted me to explore other ADA compliance concerns, and I learned the whole website was designed without any emphasis on accessibility. In fact, accessibility was not considered a business priority at all. So, I decided it should be.

Building the Business Case

I brought the surface-level accessibility issues to my superior (at the time), and he encouraged me to dig more and build a case for leadership. It wasn’t just that the website was inaccessible to groups of people, but we were at a serious risk of litigation for not complying with the American with Disabilities Act as it pertains to websites. I built a presentation that included how Target lost $6.6 million for not including alt text on their website in 2006. As the largest distributor of beverages in North America, Southern Glazer’s was too big not to act fast.

The presentation highlighted how we’re not just potentially losing money in litigation fees, but how we could be losing money from potential clients who can’t navigate our website well. Furthermore: weaving in inclusive design into the veritable front door for our company would signal to each potential client that we are prepared to accommodate their business at each level. While I didn’t have a number for the potential gains, stakeholders found the prospect just as compelling.

Becoming the Accessibility Lead

We did not have an accessibility specialist I could lean on, internal or external (the budget wasn’t able to support a consultant) so I became one. As I taught myself more and more about complying with WCAG 2.2 standards, I was the go-to internal resource for everything accessibility (as it pertained to the corporate website).

Whatever I didn’t know, I was willing to research. And I had to learn when to concede because we lacked the resources to continue with an endeavor, and when to fight for what I perceived as necessary changes. The more I learned about compliance, the more priorities shifted. My to-do list was super-headed by my leader who also lead documentation for this project.

Auditing the Website

Describe your five categories.

Maybe a visual like:

Accessibility Audit

✓ Color Contrast

✓ Text Readability

✓ Layout & Navigation

✓ Interactive Elements

✓ Images & Media

Then explain:

• Lighthouse

• Stark

• Siteimprove

• Risk matrix

• Prioritization

From Audit to Action

Instead of listing fixes, organize around themes.

For example:

Improving readability

• contrast

• typography

• headings

Making interactions accessible

• keyboard navigation

• focus states

• pressed states

• buttons

• links

Supporting assistive technologies

• alt text

• ARIA

• captions

• screen readers

Each theme could include before/after screenshots.

Working Across Teams

Maybe show a simple flow diagram.

UX Design
     ↓
Internal Communications
     ↓
Project Manager
     ↓
Development
     ↓
Review
     ↓
Iteration

Explain:

• frequent reviews

• balancing author needs

• backend limitations

• iterative collaboration

Working Across Teams

Every solved problem uncovered several more.

Between working within the CMS platform, Adobe Experience Manager, and the over-complicated fixes for what felt like simple problems, and introducing new standards into legacy code, the development team was constantly battling tech debt.

Not to mention the threat of scope-creep; with each fix, more issues cropped up. What I thought was a simple button-color-change turned into sprints-long endeavor to unify buttons across each component, so that if we updated buttons in the future, the development team could update it once (instead of 42 times).

Prioritization felt unattainable. Thankfully, my leader stepped up to let me talk through the problems and my suggested solutions. Partnering closely with the Internal Comms and Development teams helped provide clarity for next steps as well.

Impact

Then below that:

• improved Lighthouse scores

• accessibility guardrails for authors

• accessibility integrated into design discussions

Reflection

This should be visual.

I'd avoid long paragraphs.

Something like:

Impact

150
pages reviewed

~100
accessibility tickets addressed

42
components updated

85%
WCAG compliance achieved

1
new accessibility-first workflow

Then below that:

• improved Lighthouse scores

• accessibility guardrails for authors

• accessibility integrated into design discussions

Key Takeaways

• Identified and championed an accessibility initiative that was not previously prioritized.

• Secured stakeholder buy-in through research and presentations focused on business value and legal risk.

• Led a comprehensive accessibility audit of a 150-page enterprise website using WCAG 2.2 standards.

• Collaborated across Design, Development, and Internal Communications to prioritize and implement improvements.

• Helped establish accessibility as a standard consideration in the team's design and development process.