Giving accessibility work a clear finish line
Walter's prior experience · AIR MILES · Director of Product Delivery
The situation
AIR MILES had been improving accessibility across its digital properties for some time. The team had made substantial progress, but the target of a completely clean automated scan made the final mile hard to finish: findings varied in severity, and the finish line kept moving. Walter was asked to establish a clearer completion path for the remaining work.
The key judgment
A scan is an input to accessibility work, not a useful definition of done on its own. Define an internal way to assess severity, agree how it will be used with legal and regulatory colleagues, and distinguish the work already completed from the issues that still need attention.
What Walter did
- Adapted a five-level internal assessment framework and defined what each level meant for the digital properties under review.
- Used that framework to separate high-priority accessibility findings from lower-priority scan results and make the remaining work visible.
- Worked with legal, regulatory and delivery colleagues to agree on an internal target and a plan for the remaining remediation.
- Led the effort to work through the outstanding priority items across the digital properties.
What happened, and the limits
The framework showed that much of the team's earlier work already met the agreed internal target. With a clearer view of what remained, the team completed the priority remediation. This is an account of how the work was organized and delivered, not a claim that an internal rating or automated scan alone established WCAG conformance.
This was Walter's work at AIR MILES, not a Maple Spark Labs engagement or an AI implementation. It does not imply an endorsement by AIR MILES.
- Open-ended scan backlog
- Five-level internal assessment
- Agreed priorities
- Complete priority remediation