Did this ever happen to you?
A ticket looked finished but still had some hidden unanswered questions.
Sure, the screens matched the designs, the demo worked and the acceptance criteria were all ticked off. So the team moved on.
It was finished.
Then somebody tried it with a keyboard, a screen reader or a zoomed-in view and something broke.
Was accessibility somehow missed at end of delivery? Maybe. But that's rarely where the problem began.
Often, the team never agreed on how a person should complete a task if they cannot use a mouse, see every part of the screen or read any visual cues. Nobody on the team necessarily did bad work. But the important part of the work was never made clear.
That leaves a useful question. When did the team first have enough information to decide how this should work for everyone?
The answer may sit in a product brief, a design review, the engineering handoff or the QA plan. Finished work reopens when all these moments go by without a clear decision.
I'm exploring this question along with four more, in a free email course that helps digital health product teams find where accessibility rework starts. Sign up for Kill Accessibility Rework in 5 Days.