# Eric Bailey

> Eric Bailey is a Boston-based accessibility advocate, designer, writer, developer, and speaker. As a staff designer on GitHub's Primer design system, he works to make component libraries genuinely usable for people relying on assistive technologies. He is the longtime lead redesigner and maintainer of The A11Y Project, has published more than 200 articles across publications like CSS-Tricks, Smashing Magazine, and the GitHub Blog, and is a fixture on the conference circuit. His guiding line: if it's inaccessible, it is neither radical nor revolutionary.

- **Role:** Staff Designer, Accessibility (Design Systems) at GitHub
- **Organizations:** GitHub, The A11Y Project, thoughtbot, a11y-webring.club
- **Nationality:** American
- **Known for:** Lead redesigner and maintainer of The A11Y Project, one of the web's most-referenced accessibility resources, Published 204+ articles across 21 publications, including CSS-Tricks, Smashing Magazine, and the GitHub Blog, Delivered 12 talks across 22 locations on accessibility and inclusive design

## Career timeline

- **~2012** — Begins career in design and front-end work, building roughly a decade of cross-sector experience
- **earlier** — Works as a designer at thoughtbot, the Boston-based product studio
- **ongoing** — Becomes lead redesigner and maintainer of The A11Y Project, adding dark mode, reworking the accessibility checklist, and improving navigation
- **current** — Staff designer on GitHub's Primer design system, focused on accessibility
- **2026** — Co-authors GitHub Blog posts on an experimental general-purpose accessibility agent and accessible component work
- **2026** — Speaks at WebExpo Prague: 'What I wish someone told me when I first started using ARIA'

## Achievements

- Lead redesigner and maintainer of The A11Y Project, one of the web's most-referenced accessibility resources
- Published 204+ articles across 21 publications, including CSS-Tricks, Smashing Magazine, and the GitHub Blog
- Delivered 12 talks across 22 locations on accessibility and inclusive design
- Creator of accessible-html-content-patterns, a widely used reference for accessible HTML markup (192+ stars)
- Creator of a11y-syntax-highlighting, accessible light and dark code themes (219+ stars)
- Founder of a11y-webring.club, a webring for digital accessibility practitioners
- Contributor to MDN, the HTTP Archive, and the Disability Justice Project

## Latest updates

- **2026-05** — Published GitHub Blog work on building a general-purpose accessibility agent and lessons learned
- **2026** — Spoke at WebExpo Prague on getting started with ARIA

## Links

- Website: https://ericwbailey.website/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericwbailey/
- GitHub: https://github.com/ericwbailey
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ericwbailey.website

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/eric-bailey
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-03