When we began migrating Wireless’ national radio station apps onto a unified platform, it was a rare chance to reduce tech debt, align design, and finally bring our fragmented ecosystem under one roof.
But for me, it was also an opportunity to fix something that had been quietly overlooked: accessibility. This wasn’t a formal project and no one asked for it, but there was a clear opportunity to run with.
I picked up the thread while working on the talkSPORT app and started pushing it forward independently, alongside my usual BAU design work. What began as a small, localised effort eventually grew into a multi-phase accessibility strategy. It was later adopted by other News UK brands and eventually rolled out to our global counterparts in New York.
The problem: Four brands, four codebases, no shared standards
Each Wireless app had been built in isolation. While the service was mostly the same, the tech stacks, workflows, and design decisions were different. That meant any new feature had to be rebuilt four times, and accessibility had never been addressed in any consistent way.
The platform migration, known internally as Parity, gave us a clean slate. It was positioned as a way to improve developer velocity, but I saw it as our chance to finally set accessibility standards for the long term.
To do that, I built a three-part approach:
Benchmark the current state
Set future expectations
Equip the wider org with guidance they could use
Starting from the ground up: talkSPORT as the pilot
talkSPORT was the first app moving onto the new platform, so it became my testing ground for identifying accessibility gaps.
Even though the build was already underway, I led a full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance audit to benchmark where we stood. I mapped each issue against WCAG’s four principles — perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust — and aligned them to the types of impairment they impacted (visual, motor, cognitive, auditory). I also added a severity rating to help us prioritise what to fix first.
🛠️ Design Ops note: Mapping issues to actual user needs, rather than just listing violations, helped reframe accessibility as a design responsibility. Not just a compliance box.
The output was a structured report the team could act on. More importantly, it helped shift thinking. People started to see accessibility as a usability issue, not just a legal one.
Setting a new standard going forward
After triaging the backlog, I turned to prevention. I built a set of specs into the design workflow so future features wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes.
I used Figma plugins like Microsoft’s Focus Order and Colour Contrast Checker to embed guidance directly in the design files. This included:
Validated focus order and page hierarchy
ARIA tags and screen reader behaviours
Elements to skip in assistive tech
Colour contrast checks to hit AA compliance
This wasn’t just for talkSPORT. It became the default for how every Wireless brand would migrate to the new platform, giving us consistency without slowing things down.
Building a framework others could actually use
News UK has always had strong cross-brand knowledge sharing. So I knew from the start that this work should go beyond just one team.
I created a V1 accessibility framework aimed at educating and enabling teams across The Sun, The Times (TNL), and Newskit, our centralised design system. This included:
A multi-page Confluence hub with real examples and how-tos
Printed cue cards and office posters as quick-reference reminders
Best practice baked directly into design and QA checklists
The point was to make accessibility part of the workflow, not an afterthought.
Scaling beyond Wireless
Eventually, the work caught the attention of our global stakeholders at News Corp. I was invited to present the framework to our New York teams, and several of the core components were later adapted for use across US brands. What started as a side project in a single app scaled into a shared strategy across multiple regions.
Why it mattered
In the UK, one in five people is disabled. That’s a huge part of our audience. But in most organisations, accessibility still sits on the sidelines. It’s rarely prioritised unless there’s a legal reason to do so.
This work proved you don’t need a mandate or a budget to make change happen. If you understand the gaps, document clearly, and embed guidance into the right places, even one person can move the needle.
Takeaways
Use platform migrations as leverage. These moments are rare. Build systems while the ground is being reshaped.
Start with what you can control. I began with one app and used it as proof to get others on board.
Share knowledge, don’t gatekeep. Make documentation part of the workflow, not something hidden in a deck.
Don’t assume it’ll stay local. A side project can scale much further than expected when framed in the right way.