You’re Probably Not Testing Accessibility the Way Users Experience It
R3TICULAR
Most frontend developers today use tools like Axe, WAVE, or Lighthouse to test accessibility. And that’s a good start. But there’s a gap that these tools don’t really cover: They don’t tell you what a screen reader user actually hears. The Problem: Accessibility ≠ Announcement Let’s take a simple example: From a rule-based perspective, this passes: -It has an accessible name -It uses a semantic element But what does a screen reader actually announce? NVDA: “Submit Payment, button” VoiceOver: “Su