From Fonts to Foundations: Accessibility Work at Depop

My first project at Depop was deceptively simple - "make the app accessible." The app had been around since 2011, with deeply reused UI components that weren't built with accessibility in mind. Fixing font sizes or adding labels wasn't enough; the goal was to make the product usable for everyone.

Responsibilities

• Led the iOS effort to add Dynamic Type, VoiceOver support, and proper color contrast across legacy components.
• Partnered closely with accessibility designers around the world and more than 50 mobile engineers to keep the work consistent.
• Created a lightweight internal framework over native APIs so engineers could ship accessible features without wading through guidelines each time.

Outcomes

• Covered the app with accessibility features (text resize, contrast, VoiceOver).
• 60%+ of users now rely on Dynamic Type; another ~10% benefit from VoiceOver improvements.
• Accessibility became part of the default process instead of an afterthought, making it easier to scale across teams.

User testing shaped the work more than any spec. Watching people navigate with screen readers surfaced the real failures - flows that simply weren't built for them. The project reminded me that accessibility isn't "extra polish"; it's core product quality that drives retention, loyalty, and better engineering discipline.