A sustained accessibility initiative focused on bringing the Holiday Extras design system into WCAG 2.1 compliance — and building the culture and processes to keep it there. The project involved auditing existing components, implementing fixes, earning contributor access to the design system, and mentoring other designers in accessibility-first contribution.
A systematic audit of the Holiday Extras design system identified components with colour contrast failures, missing focus states, inadequate touch targets, and ARIA labelling gaps — producing a prioritised fix list aligned to WCAG 2.1 success criteria.
Components were updated one by one — adjusting colour tokens for contrast compliance, adding visible focus indicators, correcting semantic structure, and documenting the rationale for each change to support future contributors.
Contributing to a shared design system with many stakeholders required demonstrating rigour and reliability. Edit access to the system was earned through consistent, high-quality contributions reviewed by the system's core maintainers.
Accessibility knowledge was shared through a structured mentoring programme — helping other designers understand WCAG criteria, use the right tooling for contrast checking and annotation, and contribute compliant branches independently.
Outcome
WCAG 2.1+ compliance across core design system components, contributor access earned, and a new mentoring process embedded for ongoing governance.