Tax Manager View Readability & Accessability
'm raising a formal accessibility and usability concern about the redesigned Tax Manager client list, currently being rolled out to replace the existing view.
Attached are screenshots: the current list view (which we find fast, scannable and easy to read) and the new redesigned version.
Specific issues with the new design:
Colour contrast and readability: the pill-shaped status badges use low-contrast rounded backgrounds instead of plain text. For users with vision impairment, this is measurably harder to read than the current plain-text status column and does not meet WCAG contrast guidance we'd expect from an accounting platform used daily by practices.
Redundant columns: the new "Tax agent" column shows an identical value for every row in our practice, adding width and scroll with zero added information.
Redundant actions: the "Open" button duplicates functionality already available by clicking the client name, adding another element to scan per row for no benefit.
Increased row height and horizontal spread: the combination of badges, avatars and buttons increases both row height and column count, meaning fewer clients are visible per screen and more eye travel is needed to compare fields like due date against status, especially on wide monitors where this should be an advantage rather than a drawback.
No dark mode: we've also raised separately that Tax Manager doesn't support dark mode and doesn't respond to browser-level dark mode tools like Dark Reader, which appears to be because the interface isn't rendered as standard, overridable HTML/CSS.
We'd like this logged as an accessibility issue against your WCAG AA commitments, not just a general design preference, and would appreciate a response on whether the plain-text status style and font/contrast settings can be retained or made configurable before this rolls out further.
We appreciate you engaging us about this, Nicole. I see you've also reached out to our accessibility team about this too, who are currently looking into your feedback and will be best placed to respond on in relation to our accessibility standards. While we'll move your post to Feedback our accessibility team will be in touch soon. Thanks