December 15, 2025
By Marcus Feldt
5 min read
Accessibility is a design constraint, not a checklist
Treating WCAG as an audit at the end is how you end up rebuilding the same components twice.
Treating accessibility as an audit at the end of a project is how you end up building the same components twice. The findings never say "add a label"; they say "this pattern cannot work", and by then the pattern is on nineteen pages.
Constraints belong at the start
Contrast, focus order, target size and reading order are design decisions, not remediation items. Fixed at the wireframe stage they cost nothing. Fixed after launch they cost a rebuild, and the rebuild usually changes the visual design that was signed off.
Nobody calls a mobile breakpoint a "compliance requirement". Accessibility is the same kind of constraint, and it deserves the same status.
What we changed in our own process
Three things, none of them expensive. Contrast is checked in the design file before anything is approved. Every interactive element gets its keyboard behaviour written down next to its hover state. And every page is walked once with the mouse unplugged before it is called finished — which catches more than any automated scan we have run.