How Peak Design Built a Paper Trail for Accessibility Compliance Using TestParty's Developer Tools

Company Overview

Peak Design is a San Francisco-based company renowned for its innovative camera bags, travel gear, and mobile accessories. Known for their commitment to quality and sustainability, Peak Design has built a loyal following among photographers, travelers, and everyday carry enthusiasts worldwide.

The company maintains high development standards across their e-commerce platform, with accessibility being a long-standing priority for their engineering team. However, like many growing brands, they faced challenges in systematically documenting and demonstrating their compliance efforts.

The Challenge: Proving What You've Already Done

Peak Design's challenge wasn't a lack of commitment to accessibility—it was proving that commitment existed.

"Accessibility has been a part of our development standards for a long time," explained Andrew Stoner, a senior member of Peak Design's development team. "The piece we were struggling with was documenting changes over time and being able to have a paper trail of everything we've done in relation to accessibility."

This documentation gap is common especially in ecommerce where ADA demand letters are common. Even if companies make accessibility improvements, they lack the systematic evidence to demonstrate their ongoing efforts: a common vulnerability that serial plaintiff law firms exploit.

The team needed a solution that would integrate into their existing GitHub workflow while automatically generating the compliance documentation they were missing.

Why Peak Design Rejected Accessibility Overlays

When evaluating accessibility solutions, Andrew quickly eliminated overlay widgets from consideration.

"A number of the leading tools focus on accessibility widgets, which I just don't believe in as a solution," he said. "It's not an equitable solution. While overlays may create the appearance of compliance, they generally don’t align with the code-level accessibility standards we prioritize.”

This assessment reflects the growing industry consensus on why overlays fail. Rather than actually fixing code-level accessibility issues, overlays attempt to patch problems with a JavaScript layer—an approach that doesn't create genuine accessibility and often fails to prevent lawsuits.

"We care more about actually creating an accessible experience and being able to show how we do that," Andrew explained.

Peak Design needed a modern alternative to overlay solutions that would integrate with their development process and create verifiable evidence of real fixes.

The Solution: Developer-Native Accessibility Tools

TestParty's approach aligned with how Peak Design's engineering team already worked. Two products became central to their workflow:

Bouncer integrates directly with GitHub, analyzing pull requests for accessibility issues before code merges to production. It provides inline suggestions that developers can review and implement without leaving their familiar environment.

Spotlight scans production pages on a scheduled basis, identifying accessibility violations and tracking compliance levels over time through a centralized dashboard.

"The GitHub integration was a big piece of it," Andrew noted. "And then also the dashboard to see reporting levels over time was quite helpful."

Implementation: From Manual Testing to Automated Workflows

Before TestParty, Peak Design's accessibility process was entirely manual.

"What we were doing before is manually testing our pages," explained Guia Chavez, a front-end developer on the team. "We had this WCAG extension tool that we'd run on pages, then manually get whatever errors they throw at us and create a ticket out of it."

The new workflow eliminates that manual overhead:

1. Developers write code and open pull requests as normal
2. Bouncer automatically analyzes each PR for accessibility issues
3. Inline suggestions appear directly in the GitHub interface
4. Developers incorporate fixes before merging
5. Spotlight scans production to catch any issues that slip through
6. Reports feed into JIRA for systematic tracking and resolution

"It's no longer manual anymore," Guia said. "We're using TestParty to do the audit for us. No need for manual intervention. When someone asks what has been done, we just give them the report of errors and the pull request that we did to fix those issues."

Results: Catching What Developers Miss

The integration has proven especially valuable for catching commonly overlooked accessibility issues during the development process.

"We've seen a lot of intervention from TestParty," Guia reported. "A lot are helpful. I would say 80 to 90% of the suggestions were useful."

The most frequently caught issues include:

• ARIA attributes that developers typically forget to add
• Color contrast violations that aren't obvious during visual review
• Form input labels and other semantic markup issues

"There are some times that we miss adding those accessibility features that are needed in the code," Guia explained. "It's good that TestParty is able to audit everything we're adding and put in those suggestions for us."

This aligns with TestParty's research on common WCAG violations that trigger lawsuits—many of the issues that lead to legal action are precisely the kind of technical details that automated tooling catches best.

Strengthening Legal Defense with Documentation

Perhaps most significantly, TestParty addressed Peak Design's original pain point: creating a defensible paper trail.

"Being able to show that it's something we're focused on and we have clear PR requests historically of all the accessibility fixes we put in—that definitely was helpful," Andrew said.

He acknowledged the gap that existed before: "It was also clear that we wanted a more robust and centralized way to document our accessibility-related development work. I do see [TestParty] already being helpful in the future to be able to combat those."

For brands with and without ADA demand letters, this kind of documented compliance history can significantly impact settlement negotiations and demonstrate good faith efforts.

Ease of Implementation

Despite the sophisticated functionality, the learning curve proved minimal.

"I think it's pretty easy—straightforward," Guia said of the setup process. "We just set up what pages we wanted to audit and that's it."

The team was able to get value from the tools without extensive documentation or training.

"It's very easy to understand, very user friendly," Guia added. "We were able to use it without needing a lot of documentation."

Andrew agreed: "Setup was pretty straightforward. We were able to work it into our process pretty seamlessly."

The Verdict: Modern Tooling for a Real Problem

When asked to summarize the partnership, Andrew's response captured what set TestParty apart:

"It's a modern accessibility tool that is focusing on doing a single thing really well. And I appreciate that a lot."

For Peak Design, that focus means:

• Automated compliance documentation that didn't exist before
• Developer-friendly tooling that fits existing workflows
• Actionable suggestions that actually get implemented
• A defensible paper trail for future legal challenges

About TestParty

TestParty is an AI-powered digital accessibility compliance platform that helps e-commerce brands achieve and maintain WCAG 2.2 AA compliance. Unlike overlay solutions that mask accessibility issues, TestParty provides source code remediation through developer-native tools.

TestParty's product suite includes:

• Bouncer: GitHub integration that reviews pull requests for accessibility issues before code ships
• Spotlight: Production scanning that tracks compliance levels over time
• PreGame: VS Code extension for catching issues during development

Serving 45+ brands generating over $2 billion in combined revenue, TestParty works with engineering teams that want real accessibility fixes—not band-aid widgets.

Ready to build accessibility into your development workflow? Book a demo to see how TestParty can help, or explore our guide to building accessibility checks into CI/CD workflows.