Design it in rather than auditing it later. Check color contrast as you pick colors (4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for large text and UI components under WCAG 2.2 AA), specify focus order and keyboard behavior in the spec, annotate headings, labels, and landmarks for engineers, and include target size and motion preferences. Retrofitting after a build always costs more.
Why interviewers ask this
Accessibility is now a legal and procurement requirement in many markets, not a nice-to-have, and teams have been burned by designers who hand over mockups with no focus states or keyboard story. Interviewers want specifics: actual ratios, what you annotate, which tools you use. Vague enthusiasm about inclusive design with no numbers in it reads as someone who has read about accessibility rather than shipped it.
How to structure your answer
- Bake contrast and type-size checks into the design phase, not review.
- Specify keyboard order, focus states, and error handling in the handoff.
- Annotate semantics: headings, labels, landmarks, live regions.
- Name the tools and standards you work against.
- Test with a screen reader and keyboard before you call it done.
Example answer
I try to make it boring and routine rather than a heroic audit at the end. When I pick colors I check contrast right there, and our tokens carry the pass or fail with them so nobody has to think about it later. Every flow I hand over has a keyboard story: what the tab order is, where focus goes when a modal opens and where it returns when it closes, and how errors get announced. I annotate structure directly on the frames, so heading levels, what is a button versus a link, and the accessible name for icon-only controls. That last one catches a lot of bugs, because an icon button with no accessible name is announced as just 'button' even though it looks perfectly fine. I run axe on the built version and I keep VoiceOver on my machine and use it, badly, but enough to catch obvious breakage. And I include target size, at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels under WCAG 2.2, plus reduced-motion alternatives for anything that animates.
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See how it worksFollow-up questions to expect
- What contrast ratio does a disabled control need?
- How do you handle focus management in a single page app?
- What would you do if engineering says there is no time for accessibility?
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