Hermione Granger read Hogwarts: A History before her first day of school, and she’d read the WCAG 2.2 spec before her first day on a product team. By lunch she’d have questions about it. By Friday she’d have answers for everyone else.
She’d also be the first person to raise her hand in sprint planning, every single time.
It’s aria-label, not aria-lable
Hermione corrected Ron’s pronunciation in their first Charms class. “It’s Levi-O-sa, not Levio-SAR.” She was right, and the feather floated.
She’d bring the same precision to code review. She’d catch the misspelled aria-lable that silently does nothing, the role="button" on a div with no keyboard support, and the aria-hidden="true" on the only label a form field had. Her review comments would be short, correct, and come with a link to the exact part of the spec. People would be annoyed for about a minute, then grateful.
The library is her first stop
When Hermione didn’t know something, she went to the library and came back with three books and a plan. On a product team, she’d go straight to the docs, the specs, and the research on what users actually do, before anyone started arguing from opinion.
She’d also be the one to write things down. The team’s component documentation would finally explain when to use each component, not just how. It would have usage notes, examples, and a section on what screen readers announce.
She’d start a society for users
At school, Hermione started S.P.E.W., the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, because she noticed a group nobody else was paying attention to. Almost nobody joined, and she kept going anyway.
On a product team, she’d do this for users with disabilities, slow connections, old phones, and limited English. She’d hand out badges, run lunch-and-learn sessions, and keep bringing it up in planning until it stopped being a special topic and became the way the team works. This time, people would join.
Everything fits in the beaded bag
Hermione carried a small beaded bag that held a tent, a library, and most of what three people needed to survive for a year. She’d build a design system the same way. It would be compact, well organized, and ready for whatever the team needed in a hurry.
Need a date picker that works with a keyboard? It’s in the bag. Need the error state for a file upload? It’s in the bag, documented, with a usage example.
Where she’d grow
In her third year, Hermione used a Time-Turner to take more classes than there were hours in the day, and it nearly broke her. On a product team, she’d take on the accessibility audit, the design system, the docs, and two features, and she’d say yes to a fifth thing in the hallway.
She’d have to learn to share the work, and teach others to do it well instead of doing it all herself. Once she did, the whole team would get better at it.
What we’d learn from Hermione
Hermione would show us that reading the spec is how you get things right for the people who depend on them. She’d make precision and advocacy feel normal on the team, and she’d remind us to stand up for the users nobody else is paying attention to.
And when the team finally passes its first full accessibility audit, she’d say, “Honestly, we could have done this two sprints ago.” Then she’d smile, because they did it together.
This article is part of the Famous Fictional UX Engineers series.