This one thing has been bothering me lately.
I've noticed that on most teams, there's someone who usually notices accessibility problems. They're the ones that speak up in meetings. It's the designer who asks about colour contrast, the engineer who checks the keyboard interaction and figures out it's not working or the QA tester who catches the missing label before a release.
Everyone considers that person a hero. A star. Amazing.
I appreciate that person every time I meet them. I also wish they didn't exist. They have become the team's official safety net for accessibility.
This creates inconsistent quality and puts pressure on the person who keeps speaking up. They may start reviewing everything, answering every question and becoming the bottleneck nobody intended to create.
Pretty soon, accessibility starts to depend on whether that person joined the project, attended the right meeting or had enough time to check the work. And when they're away, the gaps appear. When they move to another team, the knowledge moves with them.
Better defaults help, but teams also need clear moments when accessibility gets considered. Product can include it in the requirements. Design can explain expected behaviour. Engineering can test the implementation and QA can check the final experience.
This way, responsibility can be shared without becoming something vague no one owns or fully understands. Each person needs to know what they own and when they should act.
Who on your team catches most of your team's accessibility issues and speaks up in meetings? Now ask yourself what would happen if they missed the next meeting.