UX/UI Designers near you

Contrast, type size, focus order, target size, label placement and error messaging are all fixed in design files long before a developer sees them. So is whether meaning is carried by colour alone, which is one of the barriers DOJ specifically names. Retrofitting these after build is where accessibility work becomes expensive, because the fix is usually a layout change rather than an attribute.

A design team can carry this cheaply with a few habits: state a conformance target in the project brief, check contrast on every component as it is drawn, design the keyboard path as deliberately as the pointer path, specify alternative text alongside every image placed in a mock-up, and include focus, error, loading and empty states in the component set. If the product will be sold to government, the standards become concrete: the Revised Section 508 Standards incorporate WCAG 2.0 for federal agencies, and DOJ's 2024 Title II rule sets WCAG 2.1 Level AA for state and local government web content and mobile apps.

Interfaces that obscure material terms are treated as advertising, not as neutral plumbing. The FTC's guidance on digital disclosures asks for proximity to the claim, prominence, no distracting elements around the disclosure, repetition where the claim repeats, and formats suited to the medium. It also warns that hyperlinks supplement rather than replace information the user needs immediately, and that space-constrained formats do not excuse leaving material terms out.

For subscription and trial flows, the FTC's telemarketing rule shows the shape of what regulators expect disclosed before a customer commits: that there is a recurring charge, what it costs, when it starts and what cancelling involves. Designing a signup that takes three taps and a cancellation that takes a phone call during business hours is a choice that has attracted enforcement. If a product manager asks for friction on the way out, ask what the material terms are and where the user sees them.

The titles overlap and the market uses them loosely. Broadly, UX work is about structure, flows and evidence; UI work is about the visual system and the craft of the screens; product design usually means one person doing both alongside a product manager. Small US businesses hiring a single designer almost always need the combination, and should say so rather than trusting the title.

The distinction that matters at hiring time is whether the person does research. Plenty of excellent interface designers do not, and a portfolio of beautiful screens tells you nothing about whether anyone could use them. Ask to see a case where testing changed the design, and ask what was abandoned as a result. The answer separates practitioners from stylists.