C3 accessibility audit

About

C3, a browser-based shareholder accounting and management software, presented design barriers that could exclude users with disabilities and hadn't previously been evaluated for accessibility.

Goal

Identify content and design barriers that could exclude users with disabilities and provide actionable recommendations to improve both clarity and accessibility.

Strategy

I evaluated the software against WCAG 2.1 AA standards, focusing on assistive tech compatibility, intuitive design, language clarity, and semantic structure.

Solutions

• Catalogued and analyzed instances of accessibility violations across user journeys and edge cases
• Delivered a report of audit findings with proposed solutions including annotated examples, associated WCAG criteria, and proposed solutions
• Facilitated a workshop to review audit findings and demonstrate how assistive technologies interpret and navigate the software

Challenges

• Stakeholder accounting and management isn’t my area of expertise, so I had to invest time researching these areas to properly evaluate user journeys across C3.
• It’s much easier to implement best practices for accessibility in the foundational stages of the design and development process than it is to retrofit existing software to meet accessibility criteria. C3 needed several long-term accessibility fixes that would require redesigning the UI and refactoring the code, which wasn’t realistic given other projects in flight. I provided short-term stop-gap solutions alongside long-term recommendations to improve accessibility.

Results & impact

• Improved screen reader navigation success rate for high-traffic user journeys
• Established an accessibility QA checklist for future software releases

This project reinforced my belief that accessibility isn’t just a technical checklist — it’s a human-centered discipline that requires empathy. The stop-gap fixes also highlighted how small changes in design and structure can majorly impact usability and user autonomy.