The Problem Isn’t Motivation. It’s Memory.

Most accessibility work starts the same way. Someone asks a question. Someone knowledgeable answers it. The team moves on.

That exchange feels productive. It is productive. But it has a hidden cost.

If the answer only lives in a meeting, a Slack thread, or someone’s head, it disappears the moment priorities shift, people rotate, or the next new hire joins the team. Then the same question comes back. And back again. And eventually, people stop asking.

This is how accessibility quietly erodes—not because people stopped caring, but because the organization never learned.

When Knowledge Stays Personal, Progress Stalls

I’ve seen teams with strong accessibility instincts still struggle because everything depended on informal help. Reviews caught issues late. Decisions were explained verbally but never recorded. Good intent was everywhere, but confidence was fragile.

You can spot this pattern easily:

• The same questions come up every quarter

• Accessibility advice changes depending on who you ask

• New team members hesitate because “I don’t want to get it wrong”

That hesitation matters. When accessibility knowledge feels personal or fragile, people wait for permission instead of acting.

Writing Things Down Is a Leadership Move

Documentation gets a bad reputation because people imagine heavy process and stale guidelines. That’s not what makes accessibility stick.

What works is much simpler.

Write down why a decision was made. Capture what “good enough” looks like today. Share the tradeoffs you accepted so the next team doesn’t repeat the same debate.

This kind of documentation does three important things:

1. It makes decisions reusable

2. It lowers the cost of participation

3. It shifts accessibility from private expertise to shared context

That shift is the difference between a team that depends on experts and one that can move independently.

What This Looks Like in Practice

This is not about creating perfect artifacts. It’s about leaving breadcrumbs.

Some examples I’ve seen work:

• A short design note explaining why a color contrast exception was approved

• A checklist used during planning, not just at review time

• A shared definition of “keyboard complete” that everyone agrees on

None of these are impressive on their own. Together, they create continuity.

Action You Can Take This Month

If you want to make accessibility stick where you work, start small and concrete:

• The next time you answer a question twice, write it down

• Turn one recurring accessibility comment into a checklist item

• Capture one decision and share it with the team that wasn’t in the room

Do not wait for a documentation sprint. Do not aim for completeness. Aim for usefulness.

This Is About Care, Not Control

Repeating yourself is exhausting. Holding knowledge in your head is risky. Documentation is not bureaucracy—it’s a way of caring for the people doing the work now and the people who will join later.

Accessibility lasts when it stops relying on memory and starts relying on shared understanding. That doesn’t happen all at once. It happens through small decisions made consistently.

That’s how the work survives you. And that’s how it actually sticks.

— This article was written with AI asssistance