What’s missing from your accessibility strategy?

I talked to the owner of an e-commerce shop last week who was frustrated. Their team had been “working on accessibility” off and on for two years, but nothing seemed to stick.

When I asked what they’d tried, the answer was telling: “We bought an automated testing tool and ran some training workshops.” The problem wasn’t their level of effort – it was a diagnosis. They were treating symptoms without understanding the root cause.

Long-term accessibility success requires three things: technology, people, and process. Most organizations are strong in one or two areas, but weak in the third. And that weak area becomes the bottleneck.

Technology is your tools and infrastructure. Automated testing in CI/CD. Accessible component libraries. Screen reader software for manual testing. The technical systems that catch problems and prevent new ones.

People is your skills and knowledge. Developers who understand WCAG and coding best practices. Designers who create accessible mockups. Content creators who know how to write with clarity and comprehension in mind. The human expertise to build accessibility from the start.

Process is your workflow and accountability: when accessibility checkpoints happen, who’s responsible for what, and how decisions are documented. These are the systems that ensure accessibility doesn’t get skipped when deadlines loom.

Most teams are aware of which area is weakest. You have automated tools, but no one knows how to fix what they flag. Or you have trained developers, but no process to ensure accessibility happens before launch. Or you have a great process but no tools to support it at scale.

The key is diagnosing which area needs strengthening, then developing a plan to build it up.

Over the next three weeks, I’ll cover how to grow each of these areas: what to do when technology is your bottleneck, when people are your gap, or when process is missing.

You can’t fix everything at once. But you can identify your weakest area and start making it stronger.