Why a Perfect Accessibility Score Still Leaves Real Users Stranded
Automated accessibility tools like AXE and Lighthouse can confirm that HTML attributes are correctly structured, but they cannot verify whether an interface is actually usable by people relying on assistive technologies. AXE inspects a static DOM snapshot against a ruleset, meaning it has no way to detect runtime failures such as focus dropping to the top of a page after a dialog closes, or a keyboard-operable switch that never responds to key presses. Error messages that rely solely on colour changes and are never programmatically linked to form fields will also pass automated checks, leaving screen-reader users with no indication that validation has failed. Experts estimate that automated tools catch only around one-third of WCAG accessibility issues, with the remaining two-thirds requiring manual, human-led testing. Developers are advised to treat green automated reports as a starting point rather than a guarantee, and to supplement CI checks with real-world keyboard and screen-reader testing.
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