Case Study: Accessible Enterprise Mega Menu

Overview

I led the design and implementation of a highly accessible, enterprise-scale mega menu for a client’s HubSpot-based marketing website. The project required balancing complex interaction patterns, dynamic CMS content, and strict accessibility requirements while ensuring the navigation remained intuitive for all users.

My role: Senior Frontend Engineer and accessibility lead, responsible for technical architecture, implementation, and accessibility validation.

The Problem

The client needed a redesigned global navigation that supported:

• Large volumes of content
• Multiple content groupings
• Advanced interaction patterns inside the menu itself

The provided design introduced nested interactive components inside the mega menu, which created significant accessibility challenges. Standard mega menu patterns alone were not sufficient, and naïve implementations would have resulted in:

• Confusing keyboard navigation
• Conflicting ARIA roles
• Lack of flexibility for content authors to manage the menu without breaking accessibility

Constraints

• Built within HubSpot CMS, with dynamic, author-controlled content
• Required WCAG-compliant keyboard and screen reader support
• Needed to accommodate non-technical content authors
• Had to work across browsers and assistive technologies

The Solution

I implemented a layered accessibility approach:

• Built a semantic, standards-based mega menu foundation, using proper HTML structure, menu roles, focus management, and keyboard interactions.
• Inside the mega menu, designed an accessible horizontal tab system, carefully coordinating ARIA relationships so users always understood:
  • Which top-level navigation item they were in
  • Which tab panel was active
  • When content changed
• Structured markup so dynamically injected HubSpot content remained accessible.
• Tested extensively using:
  • Keyboard-only navigation
  • Screen readers
  • Real interaction flows, not just automated tooling

Outcome

• The final navigation passed both automated and manual accessibility testing
• Keyboard and screen reader users could confidently navigate complex nested interactions
• Content authors could manage navigation content without breaking accessibility
• The client successfully launched a highly complex navigation system without accessibility regressions