Burnout happens in teams that skip accessibility by Chris DeMars

A keynote talk arguing that treating web accessibility as an afterthought — a checklist item bolted on at the end — is a major driver of developer burnout and anxiety. The speaker connects rework caused by skipping accessibility early in the design and development process to cognitive debt, missed deadlines, and mental health strain. The core message is to reframe accessibility not as a compliance checkbox but as a stabilizer for both user experience and team sustainability. Practical points include simplifying the DOM, using semantic HTML and ARIA, avoiding unnecessary UI complexity, and building inclusive patterns from the start rather than retrofitting them.