Professional expertise. Lived experience. Real-world accessibility strategy.
I’m Svetlana Kouznetsova, an independent B2B accessibility strategy consultant, published author, and international speaker.
I advise businesses on identifying and addressing gaps between formal accessibility compliance and the real-world experiences of disabled customers.
My perspective combines more than 25 years of professional experience in design, technology, and accessibility with firsthand experience navigating accessibility and communication barriers as a profoundly deaf person.
My path to accessibility
I did not originally set out to become an accessibility consultant.
I began my career in design and technology and was introduced to digital accessibility while working as a web designer. As I learned more about accessibility and applied accessibility standards to my work, I also began recognizing how many barriers extend beyond websites and technical compliance.
I saw gaps between what organizations considered accessible and what disabled people actually experienced as customers, event attendees, media consumers, and users of everyday services.
I also discovered significant gaps in awareness about deafness — even within accessibility spaces. Deaf people have diverse hearing and communication needs, and there is no one size solution for all of them.
Those experiences shaped the work I do today.
Accessibility starts with awareness and strategy.
My consulting goes beyond checklists and one-time fixes. I work with leadership and cross-functional teams across CX, digital, marketing, customer service, communications, operations, and other functions.
Through consulting, customized training, and interactive workshops, I bring together professional accessibility expertise and real-world disabled customer perspectives to identify gaps, strengthen awareness, and develop practical accessibility strategies.
My work spans digital accessibility for disabled customers, deaf awareness and communication access, customer experience, captioning best practices, and event accessibility.
Why lived experience matters
I grew up profoundly deaf and navigated much of my education without the communication access available today. I have spent my life adapting to barriers involving communication, information, media, technology, customer service, and everyday interactions.
But being deaf alone did not make me an accessibility expert.
My professional expertise developed through decades of work and study in design, technology, and accessibility. My lived experience gives me another perspective: I know firsthand how solutions that appear accessible on paper can fail in practice.
That combination allows me to examine accessibility from both sides — professional strategy and disabled customer experience.
I hold an MS in Internet Technology and have worked across design, technology, and accessibility for more than 25 years.
Accessibility is a multidisciplinary field.
Accessibility is a broad, multidisciplinary field. Just as medicine encompasses many specialties, accessibility spans different areas of expertise — from digital accessibility and physical environments to communication access, customer experience, media, events, and the diverse needs of people with different disabilities.
No single accessibility professional necessarily specializes in every area. My work focuses on identifying and addressing gaps between accessibility compliance and the real-world experiences of disabled customers, with particular expertise in digital accessibility for disabled customers, deaf awareness and communication access, captioning best practices, and event accessibility.
Published author and international speaker
I have presented at national and international conferences and events since 2008 on accessibility across design, technology, customer experience, media, business, and events.
I am also the author of Sound Is Not Enough: Captioning as Universal Design, first published in 2014, with the second edition published in 2022, and the speaker behind the TEDx talk How Captions Increase ROI and Audience for Media Creators.
My presentations explore how accessibility can improve customer experiences, expand audience reach, and contribute to stronger business outcomes and ROI.
Ready to work with me?
Contact me – I look forward to hearing from you!