Scaling Accessibility: Frontend Accessibility Architecture & Leadership

Most teams approach accessibility through training, audits, or late-stage QA. While these efforts are important, they don’t scale - especially as frontend codebases grow more complex and teams rely on shared components and design systems.

In this talk, Niharika will reframe accessibility as a frontend architecture concern and a leadership responsibility, not just an individual skill or compliance task. We’ll look at how accessibility outcomes are shaped by architectural decisions - component APIs, state and focus management, and system-level defaults and why fixing issues after implementation leads to recurring accessibility debt.

Niharika will walk you through how to shift accessibility left across the frontend lifecycle: from design constraints and reusable patterns, to accessible component primitives, to automated feedback that catches regressions early. Finally, we’ll explore the role of frontend leads in making accessibility stick - by setting standards, enabling teams, and measuring success beyond checklists.

You will leave with concrete, actionable practices you can apply immediately, whether you are working on a single product or a shared frontend platform.
After this session, you will be able to:

• Explain why common accessibility approaches don’t scale in modern frontend teams
• Identify architectural decisions that have the biggest accessibility impact
• Apply “shift left” principles to accessibility in design, development, and CI
• Use component systems to prevent common accessibility regressions
• Influence accessibility adoption across teams without slowing delivery

Thank you to our sponsors:

• Live captions and post-event transcription: GoDaddy
• Organizer: Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker
• Your Business here! Learn about sponsorship

Event Details:
This meetup will be held at U.S. 8 AM Pacific, which is 10 AM U.S. Central, 4 PM in the UK, and 8:30 PM IST.

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Accessibility & Accommodations:
This meetup will be held virtually over Zoom and live captioned.

Slide links will be provided when applicable, and presenters are encouraged to make slides as accessible as possible with alternative text for images, etc.

We're working to secure sponsors so that we can offer ASL interpretation.

All are welcome to attend. If you need specific accommodations to make this meetup work for you, please contact an organizer, and we will try our best to accommodate you.

Code of Conduct:
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By RSVPing to this meetup, you agree to abide by these guidelines. If you have concerns that the Online Code of Conduct is not being followed, please contact an organizer.