A presentation at Portland Accessibility and User Experience Meetup in February 2026 in by Andrew Hedges
Devon Persing Digital Accessibility Consultant Andrew Hedges COO, Assistiv Labs
TL;dr, Achieving great outcomes is far easier when accessibility (a11y) is integrated across an organization. It takes people organized around smart processes & practices using tools that support rather than distract or detract from the goal.
“Continuous accessibility is defined as the approach to ensuring that code intended to be displayed in browsers can be continuously checked and monitored for digital accessibility requirements through a novel application of existing software engineering concepts and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).” Melanie Sumner Temple
– UX design (including content and research) – Project and program managers – Cross-functional roles and teams
– Strong tooling programs – Program management for a11y – Leadership support for a11y
CA promotes better outcomes across UX, risk, ROI, and your brand.
Episodic work interrupts, aggravates and creates resistance. It’s like swimming upstream.
Continuous work flows with processes & practices. It’s like swimming with the current.
Individuals and teams have periodic, often unplanned-for engagement with accessibility.
– Audits focus on already-released products – Accessibility work is focused on redesigning, repairing, retrofitting, and refactoring to address audit results – Code red/emergency shipping to put fixes into place – Occasional, “emergency” training that lacks context (usually with a hastily hired vendor) – Testing happens after work is already “done”
Individuals and teams have ongoing engagement with accessibility activities.
– Testing happens during each phase of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) – Accessibility work is done all the time (i.e., not just during twice a year sprints) – Accessibility issues are prioritized and fixed alongs with other bugs – Training is informed by individuals’ roles and contextual to the work that people are doing
There is no one way or one solution to do any of these things.
Continuous accessibility is a system that works best with at least three things:
– People – Processes & practices – Tools
– Different roles – Different experiences and backgrounds – Community with disabled people
Setting realistic accessibility goals and measuring maturity requires knowing both of these.
– Process: What are people supposed to be doing? – Practice: What are people actually doing?
– Need to support accessibility goals across the SDLC – Need to fit with processes instead of forcing them – Need to be held to a high standard
Based on End-to-end testing leveled up the way Asana engineers think about accessibility
– People – Processes & practices – Tools
Asana invested in building out a cross-functional accessibility team including program management, product management, engineering leadership, accessibility specialists, and QA.
– Started with automated scanners + manual QA – Made a distinction between audit bugs and regressions
Assistiv Labs’ Evergreen Accessibility Audits service delivered 2 unique capabilities:
– Every regression now has a recorded “before” and “after” state. – The speed of bug reporting means developers are often still in the context of the work that caused the bug.
– People: Having a team covering the several roles involved in the work is key to making progress in a big organization working on a complex product. – Processes & practices: It’s important to understand what systems & parameters are going to make sense within your organization’s culture. – Tools: Integrating great tools can unlock stepwise improvements in effectiveness.
CA requires changing people, processes & practices, and (sometimes) tools.
– Impact climate instead of culture. – Go where people already are. – Build competence, not expertise.
– Set by leadership – Official missions, values, and goals – Official policy and procedure
– Set by the majority – Unofficial missions, values, and goals – Unofficial policy, process, and practice
– Enable people – Engage with existing process and practice – Use tools you already have
There is no one way or one solution to do any of these things.
– Identify allies – If you don’t have a community of practice around accessibility, start one – Influence your climate – Encourage information literacy so people can think critically and make their own decisions
– Find out what people are doing right now so you can build a picture and benchmark to start tracking maturity – Put information in places people already go, such as role or team handbooks, design systems, and component libraries – Prioritize accessibility work that prevents harm and blocks users from completing tasks
– Use what you have available—using something is better than nothing—and use it consistently to set a baseline – Automate what you can automate – Gradually introduce other testing tools and manual testing
Find us on Bluesky! @devonpersing.bsky.social @segdeha.com
