When brand meets access: Micro-decisions that shape inclusive design

Higher education institutions care deeply about brand and accessibility. But in day-to-day digital work, these priorities can quietly pull in different directions. Accessibility rarely fails in dramatic ways. It erodes through micro-decisions: slightly adjusting a brand color, reusing a component that wasn't fully accessible, removing structural markup to simplify code or pushing testing to a later phase due to deadlines. None of these decisions are reckless. Most are reasonable in context. Yet in large institutional systems, where templates and components scale across dozens or hundreds of sites, small choices can compound quickly. Rather than focusing on technical standards alone, this session will combine short case-based examples with actionable guidance. Attendees will leave with language and tools to facilitate cross-functional conversations between marketing, design, development and content teams — shifting accessibility from enforcement to shared responsibility.