Made Jira inclusive for all, and
scaled accessibility through
the entire organisation.
Made Jira inclusive for all, and
scaled accessibility through
the entire organisation.
PART ONE
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Jira is a project management tool used by agile teams across 300,000+ organisations. Accessibility means products are inclusive and usable by everyone.
We’re on a mission to design and ship experiences that make Jira Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust (POUR), and achieve WCAG AA compliance.
Company
Atlassian
Role
Product Design Lead
Accessibility Specialist
Key responsibilities
Own and drive accessibility in Jira
Remediate existing accessibility issues in product
Scale accessibility by upskilling Jira design org
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Jira is an inaccessible product, with limited platform infrastructure. The Jira Design org does not have accessibility embedded into our people or processes.
01
Product — not accessible for users with disabilities
02
Platform — limited components, guidelines and tooling
03
People — designers have knowledge gaps
04
Process — accessibility is not a priority in design workflows
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Remediate existing a11y violations in Jira product and platform. In parallel, drive preventative measures by scaling accessibility through people and processes.
01
Product — make sure Jira is usable by everyone
02
Platform — build accessible infrastructure and tooling
03
People — upskill designers to be accessibility experts
04
Process — infuse accessibility into design workflows
PROJECT OVERVIEW
I used a persona spectrum to foster empathy and understand how solutions can be scaled across permanent, temporary or situational contexts.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Designing products with accessibility in mind improves the user experience for everyone.
Company mission
Jira needs to be accessible to help unleash the potential of every team, regardless of their ability
Social responsibility
Foster trust and loyalty among customers by demonstrating our commitment to inclusivity
Product offering
Designing for accessibility improves usability for all, so our product can serve the widest possible audience
Lost revenue
$300m Annual Recurring Revenue is at risk from public sector sales, and even more from enterprise clients
Legal risk
The European Accessibility Act will enforce civil rights laws to mandate WCAG AA compliance in May 2025
PROJECT OVERVIEW
As the Accessibility Design Lead in Jira, I uplifted the accessibility of our product and scaled inclusive design across our organisation.
PART TWO
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
I approached this design challenge with two different types of thinking:
DISCOVER
Atlassian’s Central Accessibility Team interviewed 10 Jira customers living with disabilities.
Participants
Our company survey found that employees with disabilities are experiencing problems using Atlassian tools.
Exploring alternative options
When a new role came up in my department, I felt nervous to apply for it because I can't work with Jira effectively using keyboard only.
Impacting career progression
I use the keyboard to navigate Jira. I currently can't assign issues, so my colleagues have to create and assign tickets for me.
Decreasing team productivity
Atlassian customers want to see these improvements.
Make progress immediately
Fix existing issues now, or as soon as possible
Conduct inclusive research
Test new features on users with disabilities
Provide feedback channels
Monitor support channels to raise issues
Allow for user personalisation
Provide accessibility settings as an option
DISCOVER
Atlassian is performing consistently below the industry average. Large companies have been investing in a11y for a long time and new entrants are proactive in promoting their a11y work, so they are reaping the benefits.
DEFINE
We completed a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) to identify which accessibility criteria are not supported in Jira.
DEFINE
To ensure the most critical issues are resolved first, I prioritised VPAT tickets using the following criteria.
DEVELOP
Disability cohort: low-vision
WCAG criteria: 1.4.3 Perceivable > Distinguishable > Contrast
End-to-end process of redesigning the toggle button in Jira
DEVELOP
Disability cohort: keyboard-only
WCAG criteria: 2.1.1 Operable > Keyboard Accessible > Keyboard
Keyboard-only pragmatic drag and drop experience in Jira
DEVELOP
Disability cohort: cognitive impaired
WCAG criteria: 3.3.2 Understandable > Input Assistance > Labels or Instructions
DEVELOP
Disability cohort: screen reader
WCAG criteria: 4.1.2 Robust > Compatible > Name, Role, Value
DELIVER
I shipped >200 accessibility fixes with a cross-functional team, working across several timezones.
Confirmed technical feasibility
Kept engineers in the loop to ensure tech feasibility and to catch problems early
Delivered design specifications
Updated Jira ticket, linked Figma specifications / annotations / prototypes, and filmed Loom video demos
Conducted quality reviews
Reviewed design changes during implementation, provided feedback and approvals before shipping
DELIVER
I scaled design workflows to future proof accessibility. For example, Form pattern component and guidelines.
Sparred designs
Collaborated with stakeholders to jam on solutions, drove alignment and gained buy-in
Documented decisions
Defined product and content design specifications, then provided clear rationale
Updated design systems
Improved accessibility at the component level, then published new version of library
Upskilled others
Authored educational blog on best practices and designing accessible Forms
Unblocked similar issues
By reusing this 1 solution, I resolved >50 issues, improving many Forms across Jira
DELIVER
High contrast theme
Scaled WCAG compliance through theming and token architecture. Won the UI Platform ShipIt challenge area, coming 1st of 66.
PART THREE
ACCESSIBILITY AT SCALE
Impact
A11y annotations are notes added to design mockups to provide information about accessibility. They improved design/dev collaboration through a shared language, and ensured all new features shipped are WCAG compliant.
Process
Karen raised our accessibility bar by completing a pilot program focused on incorporating accessibility into the design process. She achieved a significant milestone by delivering Jira’s first accessible design specs - an important step toward our vision of a more inclusive design organization.
Head of Design, Jira
ACCESSIBILITY AT SCALE
Impact
Upskilled the Jira Design organisation, raised awareness of different disability types, and built an understanding of how to design for assistive technologies.
Process
ACCESSIBILITY AT SCALE
Impact
Reduced the need for expensive and time-consuming retrofixes, by ensuring all new features shipped are accessible. Upskilled Jira design org, by mentoring product/content designers up to Lead level.
Process
Karen has a great deal of knowledge around accessibility, and how it is being conducted in other areas of the org. She provided excellent feedback for my work, talked through the why, then connected me with others working on similar accessible design challenges.
Lead Designer
PART FOUR
NEXT STEPS
As Product Design Lead for Accessibility in Jira, I uplifted our product to WCAG compliance, and scaled accessibility across the organisation.
NEXT STEPS
Karen delivered value quickly, was proactive and a strong communicator with high accountability. She provided a bridge between our team and the Design Systems team, sharing her knowledge which made all of our designers better.
Head of Design, Jira
Karen excelled at working in a cross-functional environment. Her design craft made significant impacts to uplift the accessibility posture of Jira towards Level AA conformance, and her design runbooks scaled her work beyond to even further teams. Karen resolved issues one quarter ahead of schedule, and consistently unblocked my engineering team.
Principal Engineer, Accessibility
Karen expertly balanced her a11y responsibilities with her design systems work, with her ability to prioritise tasks, communicate goals and dependencies and ensure clarity around a shared vision. Karen actions fixes and coaches others. She addressed the challenging topic of content reflow, delivering a huge organisation-wide impact and improving customers' experience.
Lead Content Designer, Accessibility
She hit the ground running immediately to deliver on the accessibility design backlog. She built up working relationships with a large number of product teams across Jira, gaining understanding and buy-in for a11y fixes that sometimes conflicted with those teams’ goals. Karen organised various initiatives in Jira to raise the bar on designing with accessibility in mind. She’s a strong systems thinker and has demonstrated advanced skills and knowledge on design systems.
Design Manager
As a result of Karen’s work, influence, and advocacy, the Jira team's awareness and knowledge of accessible design has grown significantly, improving our Effective Accessibility Adoption Score. Karen consistently demonstrates great leadership qualities to drive positive change across the company.
Lead Product Designer
