Accessibility isn’t a feature. It’s a responsibility.

Every year, Axe-con brings together designers, developers, and accessibility advocates from around the world for a free, virtual conference focused entirely on digital accessibility. Hosted by Deque Systems, it’s less about theory and more about real-world application. What’s working, what’s not, and what still needs to change.

This year, two members of the Pixo team attended: Landi Najarro, lead software engineer, and Isabel Skidmore, software engineer. Between them, they brought back not just insights, but a clearer picture of where accessibility stands today and where it needs to go.

Because while accessibility is often talked about as a best practice, the reality is harder to ignore.

Most websites still fail.

That’s not a fringe issue. It’s a reflection of how the digital world is still being built, and who it’s unintentionally leaving out.

For a long time, accessibility was approached as a checklist.

Landi has seen that evolution firsthand. Earlier in her career, the focus was on making things technically accessible. Meeting requirements. Passing audits.

But something was missing.

“There’s a more human part to doing this,” she explained. “Is it actually a good experience for users with disabilities?”

That shift changes everything.

Accessibility stops being the responsibility of QA or developers at the end of a project. It becomes something everyone owns. Designers, content creators, engineers, and stakeholders all play a role.

At Pixo, that philosophy shows up early. Accessibility isn’t something that gets layered on at the end. It’s part of how solutions are defined from the beginning, with user experience, content, and development working together to create something that works for real people.
Because at the end of the day, you’re not building for guidelines. You’re building for people.

For Isabel, the shift came in a different way.

After years of working in software development, it wasn’t until they joined Pixo that accessibility fully came into focus. It felt obvious once they saw it clearly.

When you build something, the most basic question should be simple. Can people actually use it? Not some people. Not most people. People.

“It was an ‘oh duh’ moment,” they said.

That realization reframes accessibility from a feature into something foundational. It’s not something you add later. It’s part of whether what you’re building works at all.

There’s no shortage of standards. WCAG guidelines outline what accessible design should look like. Automated tools can scan for issues.

And yet, the majority of websites still fall short. Part of the problem is that compliance doesn’t always equal usability.

Isabel shared a simple example. Imagine using a screen reader to shop online. You hear “Add to cart,” but there’s no context for which item that button belongs to. Technically, the requirement is met. But practically, the experience breaks down. That gap is where accessibility often fails.

At Pixo, that’s why testing goes beyond automation. The team uses screen readers to navigate sites and applications, experiencing them the way users do in real life because accessible code doesn’t always mean an accessible experience.

A lot of accessibility conversations focus on websites. But that’s only part of the picture.

Applications introduce a completely different set of challenges. Navigation patterns change. Interactions behave differently. The tools people rely on, like screen readers, work in new ways.

On desktop, users might rely on a keyboard. On mobile, they’re swiping. Instead of tabbing through a page, they’re navigating through gestures and listening for context as they move.
It’s easy to say something is mobile-friendly. It’s much harder to ensure it’s actually usable in a native app or on a phone with assistive technology.

For Isabel, seeing this in action at Axe-con was eye-opening. It’s one thing to design responsively. It’s another to experience your product the way your users do.

At Pixo, that means thinking beyond the browser. Accessibility has to carry through every product, every platform, and every interaction.

One of the more surprising takeaways from Axe-con had nothing to do with code. It was about motion.

Animations, something most of us barely think about, can create real problems for some users. Fast or repetitive motion. Sudden flashes. Notifications that stack and appear all at once. Even something as simple as a loading spinner can become disorienting or physically harmful.

And it’s not just about how things are designed. It’s about how they behave when something goes wrong. Accessibility requires thinking through failure states, not just ideal experiences. What happens when animations trigger unexpectedly? What happens when multiple elements appear at once? Those are the moments that can make or break an experience.

A recurring theme throughout Axe-con this year was AI. And not just in a theoretical way. It’s already shaping how digital products are being built.

Landi described the tension clearly. “AI terrifies me,” she said. “There’s a lot of bad. But it can do so much good in making things more equitable and accessible.”

AI can help teams move faster, process data, and support accessibility testing even more. But it also comes with risks.

There’s also the question of privacy. Using AI often requires sharing personal information, something that came up frequently in conversations at Axe-con. But it raises a deeper question. Is that tradeoff actually necessary?

Do people with disabilities have to give up their privacy just to access information, navigate a website, or use an app? Do they need to disclose personal details, or even medical diagnoses, just to get meaningful help from AI?

It’s not a new dynamic. Many people already share personal information to receive accommodations. But as AI becomes more embedded in digital experiences, it’s worth asking whether we’re designing systems that depend on that disclosure, or ones that reduce the need for it altogether.

There’s also a technical challenge. AI models are trained on existing data. And if most websites have accessibility issues, those patterns get repeated.

At Pixo, the approach isn’t to avoid artificial intelligence—it’s to use AI thoughtfully. That means understanding its limitations, checking its output, and making sure humans remain part of the process.
Because AI can assist, but it can’t replace human judgment or empathy.

One of the most consistent themes from Axe-con wasn’t technical. It was philosophical. Yes, there are laws. Yes, there are guidelines. But those aren’t the real reason to do this work.

“You should do it because it’s the right thing to do,” Landi said.

Even if regulations change. Even if requirements shift. The goal isn’t just to meet a standard. It’s to raise the floor so more people can participate.

That belief aligns closely with how Pixo approaches accessibility. Not as a requirement to meet, but as a responsibility to uphold.

What comes through clearly from Landi and Isabel’s experience is that accessibility isn’t something you add at the end. It’s something you build into how you think. It shows up in how you design interactions. How you write content. How you test. How you approach new technologies like AI. And how you ensure that accessibility carries across websites, applications, and every digital experience in between.

It requires curiosity. It requires empathy. And it requires people willing to advocate for it at every step. Because at its core, accessibility is about something simple. Giving people the ability to participate. Not because it’s required. Because it’s right.

If you’re thinking about accessibility in your own digital experiences, it’s worth asking where it shows up today and where it might be falling short.

These aren’t always easy questions to answer, but they’re important ones. And they’re conversations we’re always open to having.