Accessibility Days

I had the privilege of presenting at Accessibility Days 2025 in Milan on 15th may, where I shared our journey with Design System .italia and the exciting developments we’ve been working on.

Design System .italia is a project that aims to create a unified design system for public services in Italy, ensuring that digital services are accessible and user-friendly for all citizens. My presentation focused on the importance of accessibility in design systems and how we can leverage our experiences to create more inclusive digital experiences.

The conference was held at the historic Istituto dei Ciechi di Milano (Milan Institute for the Blind), which provided a meaningful and fitting backdrop for our discussions on digital accessibility.

The historic façade of Istituto dei Ciechi di Milano, where the conference took place

The institute’s beautiful architecture and rich history in supporting visually impaired individuals added an extra layer of significance to our conversations about inclusive design.

The conference brought together accessibility experts, designers, and developers from across Italy, creating an ideal environment to discuss the evolution of digital accessibility standards.

During my session, I focused on our ongoing efforts to enhance the accessibility of Design System .italia, with particular emphasis on our card component redesign initiative. This project emerged from our commitment to creating truly inclusive digital experiences for all users.

The current implementation of our card component, while functional, revealed several opportunities for improvement through user testing and community feedback. We discovered that keyboard users were experiencing navigation challenges, while screen reader users encountered inconsistencies in how content was being presented.

To address these challenges, we’ve developed a comprehensive redesign approach. Our new implementation introduces a more intuitive keyboard navigation pattern, ensuring users can move through card content efficiently and predictably. Perhaps most importantly, we’ve restructured our semantic markup and ARIA attributes to provide a more coherent and informative experience for screen reader users.

The accessibility community warmly received the changes presented at the conference. Attendees enriched the discussion with insightful questions and observations that will guide our continued refinement of the implementation.

As we prepare to roll out these changes, it’s clear that our work on Design System .italia is more than just a technical upgrade – it’s a step toward ensuring digital services in Italy are truly accessible to everyone. The discussions and connections made at Accessibility Days 2025 will continue to inform our approach as we move forward.

This event showed us something important: making websites accessible means more than just checking off requirements. It’s about making sure everyone can use them easily, no matter how they browse the web. This idea will keep guiding us as we improve Design System .italia.