The Road to AA: Accessible Holiday Searching

As an accessibility advocate within the design team, I led a critical project to bring TUI’s UK package search panel up to modern inclusive standards. A baseline WCAG audit revealed a compliance score of just 45%, signaling a significant barrier for users with disabilities. I led the remediation effort, conducting a comprehensive audit and authoring a technical roadmap of fixes to bridge the gap between failure and AA compliance.

This project is currently in a phased rollout across markets. While the remediation is ongoing, the initial implementation has already yielded significant improvements in both compliance and team culture.

Strategic Phasing & Implementation

• Prioritised Remediation Backlog: Given the complexity of the search panel, I categorised the accessibility fixes into high, medium, and low-priority tiers. This allowed the development team to focus Phase 1 on critical blockers (Level A compliance) while scheduling secondary enhancements for subsequent sprints.
• Incremental Global Rollout: To minimise risk across TUI’s global infrastructure, the accessibility updates are being deployed market-by-market. This phased approach allows us to monitor performance and gather user feedback.
• Continuous Integration: The remaining remediation work is currently documented and sits within the active development backlog. By integrating accessibility requirements into the TUI Design System, we have ensured that all new features are built accessibly from the start, even as we continue to patch legacy issues.

Measurable Accessibility Gains

• Interim Audit Milestone: A follow-up audit conducted mid-rollout showed a score increase from 45% to 73%. This validates that the high-impact fixes currently live in the UK and Ireland markets have already significantly reduced user friction.
• Assistive Technology Compatibility: Successfully re-engineered the search panel’s semantic structure, enabling users of screen readers and other assistive devices to navigate and execute complex holiday searches without friction.
• Intuitive Error Handling: Overhauled form validation to provide clear, understandable feedback. By ensuring error states are identifiable by both visual and non-visual users, we significantly reduced drop-off during the search submission process.

Cultural Advocacy & Leadership

• Establishing a Center of Excellence: Since the debut of this framework, I have become the internal Subject Matter Expert (SME) for accessibility. I now provide ongoing mentorship and guidance to designers across multiple product teams to ensure inclusivity is baked into TUI’s design DNA from day one.
• Standardising the Process: What began as a single audit has evolved into a repeatable blueprint for how TUI audits and documents accessibility requirements for all new and current components.
• Educational Case Study: I leveraged the documentation from this project to host workshops for designers and stakeholders. These sessions focused on the “how-to” of accessibility audits and provided hands-on training for testing with screen readers (VoiceOver/NVDA).