From ebanking services to virtual doctor visits, daily experiences are moving rapidly to digital spaces, making it more urgent than ever to create digital user experiences that are accessible to all. While most designers can agree that designing for accessibility is the right thing to do, well-intended efforts tend to take a backseat when time and resources are squeezed.

Accessibility, or ensuring that all visitors can experience a website or other digital properties without barriers, regardless of ability, is the outcome of inclusive design, where a diverse range of needs are taken into consideration in the original design. This approach to user experience and design pays off in many different ways in the long run, in terms of creating easy-to-use and efficient digital products for everyone.

A common example of inclusive design is ensuring sufficient color contrast on interfaces. And as essential as it is to have the proper color contrast for easy-to-read text, this only covers one side of design. The reality is that there are several designer roles in an organization that have different responsibilities, which vary from team to team. The definition of "design" really depends on what the person is designing: content, page layout and structure, color choices for links, text, button, icons.

So what exactly is the designer's role in this process? And what does designing for accessibility really look like in teams with diverse organizational structures and work processes?

To begin understanding the role of design, let's first take a look at how designers collaborate with team members across different functions.