Redesign Retrospective: Scaling Accessibility at MarketMate from 6 to 20 ARIA-compliant Components

Design · 5 min read

MarketMate, an e-commerce toolkit for SMBs, audited its UI and found only six components had reliable ARIA semantics. The design team set a measurable goal: ship 20 fully ARIA-compliant components in three sprints. The strategy combined a component-first approach, updated design tokens for semantic color contrast, and automated accessibility checks in CI.

Designers worked with engineering to create accessible primitives: button, input, listbox, dialog, tooltip, and table components were rebuilt with keyboard models and state announcements. The team also introduced a pattern library with code examples and voiceover scripts for QA. Stakeholder buy-in came through partnered demos that surfaced the business case: lowered legal risk and broadened addressable users.

Post-release audits showed a 90% reduction in reported keyboard-navigation issues and a decline in voiceover complaints. Besides compliance gains, MarketMate noticed an increase in time-on-task among users relying on assistive tech, affirming that accessibility-driven redesigns can improve usability for everyone.