CASE STUDY

Product accessibility & branding that:

🎨 Unified 7 years of brand debt into one accessible, scalable system

💰 Landed $1M in new business by opening a regulated client sector

📱 Saved $30K by aligning mobile and web WCAG compliance

The Opportunities

A three-part design journey to unify our product voice and unlock new business:

  • 🎨 Branding sprint to launch the app and close mobile-focused deals

  • ♿ WCAG accessibility overhaul to win regulated-sector clients

  • 🌍 Cross-platform rebrand aligned with global momentum

The Challenges

  • 🎨 Multiple brand directions → needed alignment beyond design-by-committee

  • ⏱️ Tight bandwidth → rallied team around why accessibility mattered now

  • 🌍 Surprise global rebrand → led the effort from scratch mid-project

The Scope

🎨 Role: Lead Product Designer (IC)

⏳ Timeline: 3 months (1 per phase)

🤝 Team: PMs, Dev, Marketing, Design, QA

📦 What I Shipped: moodboards, WCAG library, training, cross-product brand

🔑 Focus: accessibility standards, branding, process improvements

The Product Branding Journey

We had to move fast to meet the energy of the corporate brand, but still keep things grounded in the human side of the product. So we focused on three key steps to get everyone aligned and launch with confidence.

Step 1: Voice Development and Mood Boarding

Step 2: Collaborating on Brand Directions and Consistency Testing our Mockups

Step 3: Finalizing the Brand and Implementing It into Features

Voice Development & Mood Boarding

Brand Values Development Workshop

1. Brainstorm core values

2. Define the principles

3. Map our product position

4. Identify audience groups

Moodboarding & Style tiles

I took the workshop insights and adapted the parent brand’s recruiting palette to fit our new product, adding a human, coaching-focused tone.

Brand Direction and Consistency Testing

Step 1 - Translate Moodboards into Mockups:
Helped the team align on where the brand should land in the color spectrum.

Step 2 - Map the Brand Journey:
Plotted the full experience to ensure cohesion across touchpoints.

Step 3 - Bring the Brand into the Product:
Wove brand directions into core features for a seamless user transition.

The Final App Branding

After cross-team feedback, we landed on warm yellows and teals from the parent brand and used their photos and illustrations as polished accents throughout the app.

The WCAG Overhaul (and surprise Rebrand)

I saw a chance to tackle accessibility, brand evolution, and ROI together by meeting compliance standards, unlocking access to regulated clients, all while aligning the work with our rebrand. Here’s how:

  • Framing accessibility as a legal must and market advantage to gain buy-in despite limited bandwidth.

  • Breaking the work into strategic releases to hit early compliance goals under tight constraints.

  • Modeling the WCAG library after our design system to ensure scalability and long-term sustainability

User Focus: An Accessibility-first Roadmap

Creating the Accessibility Persona:
Mapped a user journey for their specific accessibility needs in our product.

Designing for Consistency & Access:
Used that lens to prioritize key accessibility updates and potential barriers, (keyboard nav, contrast, and screen reader support) across our brand.

Turning Feedback into a Scalable Accessibility Library

The mid-blue palette best reflected our enterprise brand and human voice. I then built the WCAG library by researching structural best practices and using our Figma design system framework to support our release cycle.

The Main Takeaways

Align faster with visuals.

Mockups made it easier to align opinions on a brand that checked every box... for users, business, and accessibility.

Break it down to speed it up.

Releasing compliance work in phases helped us hit key deadlines without sacrificing quality.

Link your efforts, double your impact.

Tying the rebrand to accessibility let us deliver both on time and with half the lift.

The Key Impacts

Unified 7 Years of Fragmented Branding

Tied multiple brand directions into one accessible system, finally bringing consistency across products after 4 separate rebrands.

$1M in New Business from WCAG Compliance

Led accessibility efforts that opened up a new client sector, securing nearly $1M in the first year and shaping our long-term compliance process.

Saved $30K by Bridging Web & Mobile

Unified branding across platforms to meet WCAG and saved ~$30K by auditing in-house, ahead of schedule.

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