Over the years, I worked with companies of different sizes, in different industries. Some of them had beautiful design systems. Some had invested in branding from well-known design agencies in Berlin. The visual work was polished. The products looked considered.
But almost none of them met basic accessibility standards.
At first I thought it was a one-off. Then I realised it was everywhere.
When I raised the subject, I found the same things every time:
The designers had not been trained.
Most had never received formal education on accessibility. They had heard of WCAG, but reading and applying the guidelines felt technical and confusing.
Accessibility lived in the backlog.
It was always acknowledged — and always deprioritised. There was always something more urgent. The improvements were recorded, then forgotten.
Nobody agreed on what the rules meant.
When WCAG was discussed, there was genuine confusion about how to interpret it in practice. Different people had different understandings. Nobody felt confident enough to lead.
What hit me wasn't
the non-compliance.
It was the cost.
What struck me was not the non-compliance itself. It was what the non-compliance meant for the people on the other side of the screen.
Digital products have become essential infrastructure. Banking. Healthcare. Public services. Job applications. Communication. For most people, these things are difficult. For people with disabilities, they are often completely inaccessible.
We talk about the internet as a space that connects and empowers. But when a button has no readable label, when a form cannot be navigated with a keyboard, when a video has no captions — we have built a new barrier. We have taken something that could make life easier and made it harder.
A redesign is expensive. Fixing an inaccessible product after it has been built costs time, money, and political capital inside an organisation. Everyone knows this. And yet the problem keeps repeating.
So why not learn to approach accessibility correctly from the beginning — so there is nothing to fix later?
So we built
the thing
that was missing.
That question is how Accessibilia was born.
Not to criticise the designers who had not been taught. Not to add another compliance tool to an already complicated landscape. But to give designers the knowledge, the confidence, and the practical skills to build accessibility into their work from the very first decision.
Because the problem is not that designers do not care. In my experience, they almost always do. The problem is that nobody taught them how.
Before accessibility became a legal requirement in Europe, most design teams here were not thinking about it. But working closely with a US-based design team changed that. In the United States, accessibility had been a professional standard for longer — and collaborating with that team meant learning the fundamentals early: WCAG criteria, colour contrast requirements, keyboard navigation, screen reader behaviour. It was not optional. It was part of how the work was done.
That experience made something clear: the knowledge existed. The tools existed. What was missing in most European teams was simply the training and the space to make it a priority.
To deepen that knowledge and formalise it, the CPACC certification — Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies — followed. It is one of the most recognised accessibility credentials in the field, awarded by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP).
"This subject became personal for me because someone close to me has a visual impairment. I know what it feels like to watch someone navigate a digital world that was not designed with them in mind. That is not a small thing. It shapes how you move through daily life. It shapes what you can access and what you cannot. I started learning about accessibility because of my work — but I kept going because of that."
Seeing the EU Accessibility Act come into force in 2025 was genuinely encouraging. For years, accessibility had been treated as optional by too many organisations. A legal requirement changes that conversation. But legislation alone does not create accessible products — trained designers do. That is the gap Accessibilia is here to close.
A more accessible internet
starts with better-informed
designers.
Accessibilia exists to close the gap between good intentions and real knowledge. We train designers to understand accessibility deeply — not as a checklist, not as a legal requirement to be afraid of, but as a fundamental part of what it means to design well.
When designers have the right knowledge, they make better decisions. Better decisions mean fewer barriers. Fewer barriers mean a digital world that works for more people — including the one in four adults in Europe who lives with a disability.
That is the goal. Every programme, every session, every exercise we create is built with that in mind.
Four things
guide everything
we do.
Practice over theory
Knowledge that is never applied is knowledge that does not stick. Everything we teach is connected to real design work.
Clarity over complexity
WCAG does not have to be confusing. We translate guidelines into design decisions that are concrete and actionable.
Prevention over repair
The best time to address accessibility is at the start of the design process — not after a product has been built.
Confidence over compliance
We want designers to understand accessibility well enough to lead on it — not just follow a checklist and hope for the best.
Barrier Slayer
was built for you.
If you recognise the pattern, if you have felt the frustration, if you are ready to do something about it — this is the way in.