Meet Shawna Barnes

Instructor | Accessibility Consultant | U.S. Army Veteran

I'm a service-disabled veteran, certified accessibility consultant, and the author of Barrier-Free Web Design. I built Learn With S. Barnes Designs because the education I needed — practical, plain-language, judgment-free — didn't exist in a format that worked for how I actually learn. So I built it myself.

What I believe

The web should work for everyone — and "everyone" isn't aspirational, it's a standard. Accessibility isn't a feature you add when you have time. It's the baseline.
Confusion isn't failure. It's just where learning starts. If you've ever Googled "what is WCAG" and closed the tab feeling worse, you're exactly who I built these courses for.
Lived experience is expertise. I'm a service-disabled veteran living with myasthenia gravis. I don't just teach accessibility — I navigate barriers every day. That changes how I teach.
Progress beats perfection, every single time. The BFDM exists because nobody starts at Stage 5. You start where you are, and you move forward from there.
Education should meet you where you are — not where someone thinks you should be. That's why every course, workbook, and resource I create starts with your stage, not mine.

How I got from there to here

I enlisted in the Army as a combat medic in 2007 and was medically retired in 2011 after a deployment to Iraq. I came home with a body that worked differently and found my way back through art — sculpting, teaching, and eventually designing.

I spent years teaching art as therapy, running a print shop, designing websites, and learning that the digital world has the same barriers as the physical one — they're just harder to see.

In 2023 I relaunched S. Barnes Designs with a focus on digital accessibility. In 2024 I launched this platform. Everything I teach comes from doing the work myself — building accessible websites, living with a disability, and helping others find their footing in a digital world that wasn't always built with them in mind.

F. A. Q.

Shawna is the founder of S. Barnes Designs and the creator of the Barrier-Free Design Model™. She's a U.S. Army veteran, a person living with a chronic illness, and a digital accessibility consultant based in Cable, Wisconsin. She built this platform to teach the practical side of accessibility in plain language — because too much of what's out there is either too technical, too vague, or too focused on compliance for its own sake.

Two things. First, it's built for people without a technical background — no jargon, no assumed knowledge, no "you should already know this" gaps. Second, it's grounded in lived experience with disability, not just theory. The teaching philosophy is simple: concept, analogy, action. Every lesson explains what something is, gives you a way to picture it, and shows you what to do next.

The Barrier-Free Design Model™, or BFDM (link opens in a new tab on sbarnesdesigns.com), is a framework for thinking about accessibility as a progression, not a checklist. It maps five stages people move through — from never having thought about accessibility to leading others through it. The BFDM shapes how courses are structured, how progress is measured, and how support is offered at each stage. You can take the free BFDM Quiz to see where you're starting from.

Yes. Shawna writes, teaches, and builds everything on this platform. That means the voice is consistent, the standards are hers, and you're learning directly from the person who developed the framework. It also means new courses are added at a sustainable pace, not a factory pace. Quality over volume.

Start free. The first lesson of every course is available at no cost, and the BFDM Quiz will point you toward the material that fits where you are right now.

Learn With S. Barnes Designs is the education arm of S. Barnes Designs, LLC. The main site — sbarnesdesigns.com — is where consulting, speaking, and one-on-one work happens. This platform is where the courses, workbooks, and community live. Same person, same standards, two different ways to work together.