Accessibility as daily practice, not afterthought.
Digital Accessibility profiles the people building accessible technology inside consulting, health care, finance, education, and product teams. Joe Walensky gives guests room to trace their career paths, then follows the thread into governance, design systems, testing, accountability, and everyday user friction.
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Digital Accessibility is a practitioner-led interview show about the work behind accessible digital products and services. Its center of gravity is not trend commentary. It is the slow, specific movement from personal conviction to organizational practice. Joe Walensky hosts conversations with accessibility professionals who describe where they work, how they arrived there, and what it takes to make inclusion operational. The show is calm and methodical. A guest may begin with a career pivot, a lived experience of disability, or a role inside product management, then the conversation gradually turns toward governance, design, development, testing, and accountability. Recent episodes feature work across consulting, enterprise software, health care, finance, medicines, education technology, and accessibility advising. Hannah Carpe discusses client readiness and the cost of leaving accessibility until later. Aileen Hackett explains why products need to be usable for people with disabilities, not only conformant. Kate Gonzalez describes councils, stakeholder engagement, inclusive meeting practices, and the value of spreading accessibility knowledge without gatekeeping. Marissa Woodbeck brings the conversation into banking, accommodations, braille credit cards, accessible statements, controls, and accountability. Darren Rowan frames digital accessibility through engage, equip, and embed, while also describing barriers encountered through screen reader and magnification use. Sam Smith places accessibility inside design systems and consumer product work. Suvik Sonsarma talks about building accessibility into proposals, design, development, testing, and sign-off. Steve Framil connects accessibility to patient experience, music education, community access, and corporate global strategy. Across these conversations, the show treats standards as necessary but incomplete. The deeper question is how teams build habits that prevent exclusion before it reaches the user. There is repeated attention to shifting left in the software development life cycle, creating roadmaps, training colleagues, learning from people with disabilities, and making accessibility everyone’s responsibility. The tone is warm but not sentimental. It gives room to operational detail without losing the human stakes: blocked tools, limited mobility, inaccessible third-party products, customer service barriers, and the practical strain of systems that were not designed with people in mind. Digital Accessibility is best for listeners who want the professional texture of the field. It offers fewer slogans and more working memory: how councils are run, how teams mature, how experts learn, and how inclusion becomes part of delivery from the start.
Made for: For product leaders, designers, engineers, accessibility specialists, researchers, and operations teams trying to make inclusion real inside digital work. It also suits listeners exploring accessibility careers through practitioner stories.
What sets it apart: The show combines career biography with implementation detail, letting guests connect lived experience, organizational structure, and product practice. Its strongest material is the bridge between empathy and systems: councils, controls, roadmaps, design systems, testing, and accountability.
Interviews with accomplished accessibility professionals to learn about their career journeys
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Digital Accessibility makes the organizational machinery behind inclusive technology visible through detailed conversations with the people doing the work.
Joe Walensky builds each conversation around the work of accessibility: how practitioners entered the field, what barriers they encounter, and how they persuade organizations to act earlier.
A cello doctorate ends up in global accessibility leadership; Joe Walensky wants you to hear how.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded accessibility discussion about turning personal advocacy into everyday organizational practice.
Digital accessibility is framed as a matter of organizational timing in Joe Walensky's conversation with Hannah Carpe, who runs Nexer's business in Sweden and its team of accessibility specialists.
A clear look at accessibility as daily work, not a side project.
The episode follows the practical work of making accessibility real inside an organization, with Kate Gonzalez talking through her role at Elevance Health and the effort to spread disability inclusion practices more widely.
Accessibility becomes real when governance, design, and production have to answer together.
This conversation treats accessibility as something that has to hold up inside a major financial institution, where design, product support, production, and governance all have to move together.
Accessibility is treated as part of the work, not an afterthought.
Accessibility is treated here as part of how work gets done, not as a box to tick. Rowan's three pillars, engage, equip, and embed, give the piece its shape: explain why it matters, build the skills, then make it part of delivery.
Accessibility is treated as system design, not a late-stage compliance fix.
Accessibility is presented as a systems issue with a human center, not a compliance task. Steve Framil's path from cellist and educator to Merck's global accessibility lead lends the discussion weight, especially as it moves between lived experience, community access, and the…
A grounded accessibility discussion about cloud and AI products, limited feedback loops, and design work that has to fit the UI in front of it.
Ryan Sugar’s Microsoft role on the cloud and AI accessibility team gives the conversation a grounded, day to day feel, and Joe Walensky keeps it tied to how people actually enter the field.
Power Platform news with practical static.
Joe Walensky interviews Hannah Carpe, who leads Nexer Digital's accessibility team in Sweden after moving from political history, communications, and digital workplace work into accessibility.
Aileen Hackett, ServiceNow’s Director of Product Management for Accessibility, distinguishes accessibility that is WCAG-conformant from software that people with disabilities can actually use.
Joe Walensky talks with Kate Gonzalez about accessibility as an enterprise practice.
Joe Walensky talks with Marissa Woodbeck about leading digital accessibility inside a major financial institution.
Joe Walensky opens by welcoming Darren Rowan, who is joining from England while Joe records from Bellingham, Washington.
This episode features an interview with Sam Smith, who leads accessibility at Coinbase, discussing how accessibility is integrated into design processes and AI, and sharing his background in the field.
Steve Framil traces his accessibility work through a career shaped by music, education, and community arts.
Joe Walensky interviews Cary Esses, OneMain Financial’s accessibility lead, about building accessibility systems across design, engineering, operations, and product work.
Joe Walensky talks with Ryan Sugar, a Microsoft accessibility subject matter expert focused on cloud and AI accessibility.
This episode features an interview with accessibility practitioner Ross Mullen, discussing his journey into the profession and his background from Canberra, Australia.
This episode features an interview with accessibility professional Maria Vandrescia, discussing her career journey and how structured workflows can help identify opportunities for accessibility discussions.
This episode features an interview with Sambhavi Chandrasekhar, an accessibility lead at D2L Corporation, discussing her career journey and work in making educational technology products accessible.
This episode features an interview with Sam Ogami from HP's Office of Aging and Accessibility, discussing their role in integrating accessibility into business processes and product development.