How do you train and mentor your web design team on accessibility best practices?

Start by mapping out the needs of your organization based on the geographic distribution of the customers. Every region and country has very specific accessibility compliance requirements. These are stricter in the public domain while dealing with government organizations. For example, within US the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) was signed on July 26, 1990 but wasn't strictly enforced within private sectors. Canada took the initiative to enforce Accessible Canada Act (ACA) through Public Safety by 2026. Access which laws and regions you need to cater to and do a checkup to catalog the level of compliance. As a general standard with WCAGa and it's derivatives, you can use VPAT template to report the findings.

I would extend this to the entire world of inclusive design.Exclusion happens every time we solve problems using our own biases.We instead need to look out for exclusions and use them as opportunities to create new and better experiences. If we use our own abilities and biases as a starting point, we craft products designed for people of a specific gender, age, language ability, tech literacy, and physical ability. I suggest defining principles that allow you to recognize exclusion first.Second, learn from diversity. Fresh, diverse perspectives are the key to true insight. Last, solve for one and extend to many.Everyone has abilities and limits.Creating products for people with permanent disabilities creates results that benefit everyone.

Accessibility compliance testing is a challenge. There are automated tools which can validate the generated HTML on a standard browser to give you some ideas. New tools are coming up to simulate more human like experiences with color contrast and navigation. Keep ongoing research practice for these kind of tools and enable your team to deliver the optimal level of conformance. User testing can reveal a lot in this case. Just being technically compliant, doesn't mean it is an usable product for the target end users. Provide guidance to team members on how we can expect people with disabilities to be successful with our offering. Also, cover the end-to-end end user journey with all the touch points - one user's experience with the brand.

The most powerful thing to do is show successful usability studies in the context where people with disabilities can use your products. It shows your team the impact you had on people's lives. Additionally, measure the progress you have made in the team to recognize and act on biases.

Share real stories of impact with your team and stakeholder to be able to emotionally connect with the impact of enabling someone, who already has a lot to deal with in their life, complete their task with least frustration. These stories stay in their hearts forever. It helps perceive the true impact a human can make on our whole race. Quite often the impact might not be as measurable as others. Articular where you are in the journey and how every step is moving the team towards the goal. Sharing a timeline of smaller achievements leading up to a bigger one is also inspirational for stakeholders.