In this episode, your hosts, Ben Nadel and Ryan Brown, sit down with Andrew Pendleton, Senior Director of Design Systems at Verizon, to discuss the role of design systems in driving consistency, accessibility, and innovation. They explore how Verizon’s approach to accessibility goes beyond compliance, how design systems empower both designers and engineers, and the challenges of maintaining a unified system in a vast enterprise.

Key Points:

• Verizon’s Design System centralizes design and engineering decisions to create scalable frameworks for digital experiences.

• Accessibility at Verizon is treated as a driver of innovation, not just compliance, influencing best practices and component design.

• The impact of constraints in design systems, allowing teams to move faster and focus on complex problems.

• The importance of cross-team communication and standardized language in improving adoption and efficiency.

• Strategies for starting a design system and integrating accessibility in an organization.

Andrew shares how his background in digital art, development, and management uniquely positioned him to lead Verizon’s Design System team.

• He discusses the importance of bridging the gap between designers, engineers, and product teams through shared terminology and best practices.

• The conversation covers how accessibility has led to innovations like responsive web design, captioning, and high-contrast modes.

• Verizon’s approach to user testing includes an accessibility lab where customers with disabilities provide direct feedback on digital and physical product experiences.

The team dives into how Verizon builds and maintains accessible components for its design system, including an advanced video player with baked-in accessibility features.

• Andrew explains how they studied platforms like YouTube, Adobe, and native HTML elements to build an optimized solution.

• The importance of leveraging the platform but extending it where necessary to maintain accessibility.

• The balance between stability and flexibility in design systems to allow innovation while maintaining consistency.

The discussion shifts to the challenges of adoption within a large enterprise and strategies to encourage engineers and designers to embrace the design system.

• Architectural misalignment and legacy technologies present obstacles to adoption, requiring phased transitions.

• Design tokens help standardize visual elements even in non-React environments.

• The role of accountability in ensuring accessibility and quality standards are maintained, even when teams customize components.

Andrew and the hosts close the episode by discussing how individuals and organizations can begin implementing accessibility in their work.

• Recommended resources for learning about accessibility, including books and online tools.

• The importance of having an accessibility champion within a company to drive awareness and adoption.

• Practical steps developers and designers can take to improve their accessibility practices, even in organizations without formal accessibility initiatives.

This episode is packed with insights on design systems, accessibility, and the intersection of technology and user experience. Whether you’re a developer, designer, or product leader, there’s something here for you!