Reward the design system that has succeeded in setting up and implementing an accessibility strategy. This could include guidelines, testing, process change, and observable results from implementation.
Criteria for Submission
- Serves a design system that caters to at least designers and engineers (eg. a UI Library by itself won’t cut it)
- Having it be accessible and usable by design system consumers (ie. you need to have launched it!)
- Have at least a base level of accessibility guidelines, accessibility testing and active processes to ensure accessibility is adhered to
- An active design system that has been updated at least once in the previous 6 months
- The design system must belong to the submitter; it cannot belong to another company or person
Best Accessibility Submission Process
To submit for this category, please provide a case study of your design system documentation. Read through the criteria below, and then hit the button to submit via a Typeform. You'll have the option to either fill in the form, or upload a case study document in PDF or Doc format.
1. Introduction
Start by introducing your organization and the design system you have created. Include a glimpse of the goals and principles of your design system. Explain context around your design system users: how big is the design system and/or accessibility team, product organization, and how many products and/or brands your design system covers. Describe your design system challenge or problem faced by your organization and explain how accessibility was identified as a key issue in this challenge/problem.
2. Solution
Explain how your organization approached the creation of the design system and why accessibility is a key concern for your team.
📚 Accessibility Strategy
Describe the accessibility strategy that the organization developed for the design system. Explain the methods and techniques used to promote accessibility. This could include testing, guidelines, tooling, process, and measurement practices.
🎨 Implementation
Detail how the accessibility strategy was implemented and integrated into the organization, and how the accessibility process has evolved over time to adapt to changing needs and challenges. Provide examples of how you have communicated your accessibility efforts to the wider organization, and how you onboard new people to ensure success.
⌨️ Accessibility results
Summarize the impact that the accessibility strategy has had on the design system, the organization as a whole, and on your end users. Provide evidence of accessibility adoption, as well as evidence that your accessibility efforts are positively affecting your end user experience.
Explain how the organization has learned from the experience of promoting accessibility via the design system. Provide recommendations for other organizations looking to improve accessibility in their own design systems. Include any supporting materials, such as visuals or data, to further illustrate the accessibility strategy and its impact
3. Conclusion
Summarize the key points of the case study and emphasize the importance of effective accessibility strategies in design systems. Reiterate why the design system and its accessibility strategy should be considered for the best accessibility category in the design systems awards competition.
4. Resources
If possible, share a link (zeroheight, confluence, notion…) or a file (pdf, ppt…) to give context to your accessibility strategy, whether that be sample pages, a link to your whole documentation, supporting data and data visualization, or feedback within your organization of the success of your accessibility efforts.
