Why a bootcamp for accessibility design

For Global Accessibility Awareness Day, GitHub’s A11y Design Bootcamp is marking one year of operation. The program, which launched in March 2023, is a live educational series designed to teach designers how accessibility fits into their workflow and how to advocate for it with cross-functional partners. It covers the fundamentals of web accessibility, how assistive technology works, how to spot bugs in wireframes and in build, and what the author terms “disability justice”—connecting accessibility work back to the people it serves.

The bootcamp runs as a cohort over four sessions across two weeks. It uses a reverse classroom model: designers complete pre-work such as videos, documentation, and articles before each session, freeing up live time for exercises and discussion. Pre- and post-bootcamp surveys are used to iterate on each cohort, and a Slack channel keeps participants engaged with reminders and reviews between sessions. To date, the author has facilitated four cohorts, reaching about half of GitHub’s design organization.

Setting up a training program

Content creation was the straightforward part, given prior experience running live accessibility education. The harder work was connecting the program to larger team and organization goals. A brainstorming session led by program manager Catharine McNally helped ground the curriculum with questions like: What makes training “sticky”? How do we make a good first impression? What should attendees feel, think, and do differently? What does success look like for facilitators?

That groundwork also surfaced false narratives designers often hold—such as “accessibility stifles my creativity”—and how to debunk them. It reinforced the value of being proactive rather than reactive in product development, and kept the program aligned with the A11y Design team’s values of being approachable, helpful, and nonjudgmental.

Four principles shape the curriculum

The same exercise established a set of values that guide every exercise, slide, and discussion in the program:

  • Relevant. Material must resonate with designers or it won’t stick. Building reusable “plug and play” modules made it easier to create exercises that could be used repeatedly.
  • Engaging. Mandatory training is often dull, so interactive exercises and discussions reinforce the material while building the trust needed for designers to ask questions.
  • Actionable. The team asked whether a designer could apply something from bootcamp 10 minutes, a day, or a week after a session. That question shaped how content was presented.
  • Safe. Psychological safety is the most critical element. Attendees need to feel there is no such thing as a silly question, and that they can learn without judgment.

Live facilitation was a deliberate choice, not just a preference. It is easy to adapt, especially with new material, and can respond to team interest faster than producing video content. It allows for live questions and peer learning, and builds community in a primarily remote organization—closer to the connection of an in-office setting. Live sessions also remove reading barriers that come with document-based training, making the material more inclusive of different learning styles such as dyslexia or dyscalculia.

Lessons from the first year

Several takeaways have shaped the program’s evolution:

  • Meet teams where they are. Start small, research where teams stand on web accessibility, and make the program valuable to them. It’s high risk but high reward.
  • Find advocates. Manager support can make or break a pilot program. The bootcamp’s success depended on managers who pushed for time to train their teams.
  • Stay flexible. The author doesn’t come from an education background, which helped keep the curriculum open to change. The reverse classroom model came from an accessibility engineer during a coffee chat, and an AI/accessibility seminar created mid-cohort remains one of the most engaged topics.
  • Measure and document. Survey data revealed how much attendees valued live facilitation and the “people-focused” session on disability. Documentation also helps share responsibility and scale the program.
  • Co-create to scale. The goal is not for everyone to become a top facilitator, but to share the load—including bringing past attendees back to build their skills.

What’s next

The bootcamp is expanding to more product design teams, and the team plans to use the existing frameworks to scale the program to other functions.

For more on how the bootcamp works alongside GitHub’s Accessibility Champions Program, the team’s axe-con 2024 talk on its accessibility education ecosystem is available on YouTube (free registration required). Additional resources are at accessibility.github.com, and feedback can be shared on the accessibility community discussion page.