Accessibility for product designers
Guides for product designers on the accessibility you decide in the design file: colour contrast, APCA, a WCAG 2.2 AA checklist, Figma plugins and the myths that come up in reviews.
Most accessibility bugs start in the design file. A text colour that fails contrast, or a focus state nobody drew, gets built exactly as you designed it. Fixing it after release means a ticket, a code change and another round of testing. Fixing it in Figma means changing a colour.
These guides cover the parts of accessibility you decide as a product designer. That's colour contrast, the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.2 AA rules that show up in your files, the Figma plugins that check your work, and the myths that come up in design reviews. Every guide names its sources, so you can check a number before you quote it in a meeting.
Colour contrast
WCAG 2 uses different ratios for body text, large text and UI parts. APCA, the method proposed for WCAG 3, scores contrast another way again, so it helps to know both.
WCAG colour contrast: every contrast rule, and what it applies to
Every WCAG 2 contrast rule in one place. It shows which ratio applies to text, controls, icons and charts, what doesn't need to pass, and why 4.48:1 still fails. It also covers which laws ask for AA.
What is APCA? The contrast method proposed for WCAG 3
APCA (Accessible Perceptual Contrast Algorithm) is the contrast method proposed for WCAG 3. The guide explains what an Lc score means, how it differs from 4.5:1, and three colour pairs where the two methods disagree. It ends with whether you should use it today.
Checking your designs
A checklist catches the misses you can see in a file. A plugin catches the ones you'd never spot by eye across a few hundred layers.
Accessibility checklist for product designers
The WCAG 2.2 AA misses you decide in the design file, from component states to sign-in. It covers what's new in WCAG 2.2 for designers and what a checklist can't catch, and there's a printable version at the end.
The best Figma plugins for accessibility testing
I tested 18 Figma contrast plugins by hand for WCAG, APCA and bulk checking, and rechecked users, prices and last updates in October 2026. Perception is one of them because I built it, and it's scored the same way as the rest.
Myths and the case for accessibility
30 accessibility myths, with receipts
If someone in a review says accessibility is for a small group of users, or that a scanner or an overlay will handle it, this has the answer with a dated source. It covers who accessibility is for, what it costs, who does the work, and the law, plus the popular statistics that turn out to be wrong.
Everything else I write, from freelancing to Figma plugins, is on the blog.