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Meet Dan van Ammers: A day in the life of a BA/ UX / Accessibility Manager
04 Jun 2026, 2:56 PMDan van Ammers, BA/UX/Accessibility Manager at Catalyst, explains his day-to-day work helping organisations build digital services that work for everyone, and why designing for real people and not ideal conditions keeps him motivated.
What’s your role and what do you do?
Dan van Ammers, BA/UX/Accessibility Manager at Catalyst.
You know when you try to use a website and the buttons don't work properly? Are the words confusing, or can you not see the text clearly? My team designs solutions that avoid those problems, and when they already exist, we find them and help fix them.
As BA/UX/Accessibility Manager at Catalyst, I manage a team of specialists who help organisations make their digital services work better for everyone. We cover business analysis (BA), user experience (UX) design, quality assurance, and digital accessibility, which work together to build a good user experience.
What’s your role and what do you do?
You know when you try to use a website and the buttons don't work properly? Are the words confusing, or can you not see the text clearly? My team designs solutions that avoid those problems, and when they already exist, we find them and help fix them.
As BA/UX/Accessibility Manager at Catalyst, I manage a team of specialists who help organisations make their digital services work better for everyone. We cover business analysis (BA), user experience (UX) design, quality assurance, and digital accessibility, which work together to build a good user experience.
What does a typical day look like?
Example of an accessibility audit report displaying results in a pie graph.
My morning usually starts with checking in on multiple projects. I might review an accessibility audit report for a client, which covers either a whole website or a few pages, highlighting what elements need to be fixed to reach higher accessibility standards. The UX team and I discuss user research findings, such as the best way to simplify a user path, or help solve a tricky problem one of our business analysts has uncovered.
The rest of the day moves between client meetings, supporting my team, and new business development. And I still work as a BA and UX consultant, supporting internal Catalyst processes and jumping into client engagements when capacity allows.
What does it take to build services online that work for everyone?
Making digital services accessible isn't about serving a small group of users with disabilities - it's about designing systems that work reliably for everyone. When we fix form labels for screen readers, we also make forms clearer for people on mobile phones, or people filling them out when they're stressed or tired. Good accessibility is just good design.
Many of the "technical" problems we solve aren't really technical at all. They're organisational. Systems often work exactly as they were designed to - but the design priorities don't match user needs. That's shifted my focus from identifying what's broken to understanding why it was built that way in the first place. The most effective solutions usually involve changing processes and priorities, not just fixing code.
And it doesn't stop at launch. A system might work perfectly in testing but fail when real users encounter it under pressure, on different devices, or with different levels of digital confidence.
How would you describe the change in UX and accessibility since you started?
Over the last few years, there’s been a massive shift from treating accessibility as a compliance checkbox to recognising it as fundamental to good design. Government clients increasingly understand that inclusive design benefits all users. The focus has moved from "does this meet WCAG standards?" to "can people actually achieve what they came here to do?"
There are also a lot of resources available to support organisations in identifying barriers. CWAC is a great tool that the government created to help people understand key accessibility issues they can begin to fix.
What's next in accessibility?
There's a growing recognition that digital inclusion isn't optional any more. With more services moving online, there's increasing demand for expertise in making those services work for everyone and the appetite to build that in from the start. Because of this, we're developing more efficient audit processes and exploring ways to integrate accessibility guidance earlier in project workflows.
If you're interested in learning more about what Dan has shared, you can send him a message. If you're interested in joining the team at Catalyst, check out our available positions.
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