It’s commonly understood that automated accessibility testing tools can find around 20-30% of accessibility issues, but what does this actually mean in practice? Beau takes a closer look at these tools using specific examples, demonstrating the types of accessibility issues automated testing tools won't find, why that is the case, and how they could be giving you a false sense of accessibility.

About the speaker

Beau is the Technical Lead for TTC Global's Digital Accessibility Practice, and formerly the Lead Auditing and Testing consultant for the digital accessibility team at Vision Australia. Beau has been working in digital for 20 years, as an accessibility consultant since 2019, and formerly as a Web Developer and Senior/Lead Front End Developer for digital agencies in Melbourne.

Disclaimer: This post is not about lighthouse, other testing tools perform similarly. It's about us developers and our responsibility to not thoughtlessly rely on automatic testing.

It’s always nice to see when people post their Lighthouse scores on social media to highlight how well they’ve optimised their own or their client's website. It shows that they care about the quality of what they build.