A recurring theme in my work is that the end user is rarely the "average user". A bereaved relative who just lost a loved one, a deaf or hard-of-hearing child learning to read, a teacher operating WebRTC without being a techie, a lab worker with hurried hands — all four ask something different from software than a typical product demo.
On the educational games portal for deaf and hard-of-hearing children we explicitly aimed for WCAG A++. Accessibility for that project meant much more than a few contrast settings: all interaction had to be workable with keyboard, screen reader, and varying input devices. Animations, sounds, and visual feedback were deliberately supportive and never blocking; all content had to be reachable in multiple ways. That forced sharper choices in markup, focus management, and component design than in an average project.
On the estate portal, human-centered UX was central in a different way. Someone who has just lost a loved one shouldn't have to fight a form. The steps had to be logical and understandable, in language that didn't get unnecessarily formal, with a visual calm that doesn't push away but invites in. Design and development worked very closely together, and every design choice was tested against the same question: does this help a person who feels heavy right now, or not?
On the teacher learning environment for sign language, accessibility returned in another form: an interface that had to stay low-threshold for people who aren't techies, with clear feedback when a WebRTC connection wouldn't come up. On the COVID portals it was about a UI that, under stress (endless rush, fast-changing guidance), had to be operable by very different audiences.
What binds these projects is the same principle: don't design for the median, design for the edges. Whoever designs for the edges — disability, stress, unfamiliarity with technology — almost always builds something that works better for the middle too. The reverse rarely holds.
For me this type of work is one of the most attractive parts of the craft. Good technology becomes truly valuable in the spots where it removes quiet, daily friction — for people who, without a few smart design choices, simply couldn't take part.