LastPass × a11y
Senior Product Designer @ GoTo — 2021
Summary
I got to oversee an extensive accessibility overhaul at LastPass, as the UX designer on a team that moved fast. Together with five developers, we worked through a long list of accessibility violations and pushed the platform's a11y rating up by 14%. The update went live on the 10th Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
Goal
Our sales team wanted LastPass in more regulated sectors — banking, insurance. Those buyers have a hard bar: the VPAT has to land at 80% or better. So that meant fixing the app's mediocre accessibility rating across the web app, the desktop app, and the browser extension — and coming out with a VPAT report we could actually hand over.
Outcome
Worth remembering what we inherited: keyboard navigation and screen reader support were close to non-existent. Where that initial ~69% rating even came from, we never fully worked out — we just did our best with the time we had.
Two months of intensive front-end refactoring pushed the a11y rating up to ~83% — a huge win for the user base. In real-world terms, the app became fully usable with assistive technologies.
This included full keyboard navigation, fully valid ARIA announcements, and the ever-popular classic: "every button became a real button" change.
And the real bonus? An Axe test became part of the E2E testing suite after our project.
For my enthusiasm, and for pushing the dev team to its limits (sorry guys, I was a pain in the ass!), I got promoted into GoTo's* Accessibility Champion program. There I joined the other champions advocating a11y standards across the organization.
* GoTo, formerly LogMeIn, was the parent company of LastPass at that time.
Takeaway
Just because something can be clicked doesn't mean it's a valid navigation element — and most assistive technology treats it that way. These "fake" buttons and links are either nonexistent to screen readers or reduced to plain text.
Use the right element for every block of UI. Follow valid code schematics and most compatibility issues never come up.
It's shocking how many people assume everyone has full sensory and fine-motor function, but in reality, accessibility issues affect more people than you'd expect. And a11y features aren't just about inclusivity; they also make your software more efficient for your power users.
Further Reading
LastPass wrote about the company-wide accessibility journey: