Backlogged or checkboxed: why accessibility work gets ignored

Too often in large organisations, critically important accessibility work ends up in a backlog, or is reduced to a checkbox exercise. In this talk, I explore how our approach at Bankwest introduces and frames digital accessibility at scale as holistically beneficial in practice. Drawing on my corporate experience, I’ll show how WCAG can be too abstract to drive prioritisation or become the definition of success, and how reframing accessibility in the language of decisions leads to inclusively beneficial outcomes for users.

Karl McCabe

Karl McCabe is the Digital Accessibility Lead at Bankwest, where he works to embed accessibility into products, services, and the design system at scale. His focus is on helping teams move beyond compliance and deliver better outcomes for customers.

His perspective is shaped by a background in design, and experience working in large corporate environments, like Telstra and Bankwest, where progress in accessibility depends on how it is understood, communicated, and prioritised across the organisation.