Accessibility testing has become increasingly automated, with tools like Lighthouse, axe, WAVE, and CI-based scanners integrated into modern development workflows. These tools are excellent at identifying many common accessibility issues, but what happens when a site scores 100 and real users still encounter barriers?
In this session, we'll look beyond the score and examine the gap between automated testing and real accessibility. Through practical examples and real-world scenarios, we'll explore what accessibility tools are designed to detect, where their limitations begin, and why some of the most significant accessibility challenges still require human judgment.
Attendees will learn how issues affecting keyboard users, screen reader users, and people with cognitive or situational disabilities can remain invisible to automated scans. We'll also discuss how context, interaction patterns, content meaning, and user experience often determine whether a digital experience is truly accessible.
The session will demonstrate how teams can build a balanced accessibility strategy by combining automated testing, manual validation, and AI-assisted analysis. Rather than treating accessibility as a checklist or compliance score, we'll focus on practical workflows that help development, QA, and product teams identify meaningful issues and prioritize fixes that improve real user experiences.
Whether you're a developer, tester, designer, or accessibility advocate, you'll leave with a clearer understanding of what accessibility automation can do, what it cannot do, and how to create a more effective and realistic accessibility testing process.
Key Takeaway: A perfect accessibility score is not proof of accessibility. Real accessibility begins where automation ends.