The major technical reasons why accessibility overlays don’t work

The Overlay Factsheet describes an accessibility overlay as follows: The fundamental constraint you will notice as you dive into the details below is that post-rendered remediation is working against the framework, not with it. React (and similar frameworks) own the DOM. The framework expects to be the single source of truth for element structure, attributes, […]

Karl Groves - 10/04/2026

A VPAT that claims “Supports” across the board is a red flag, not a success. I’ve reviewed hundreds of VPATs—Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates—over the years, and the pattern is unmistakable: many are filed without substantive testing. Organizations create them to satisfy procurement…

Karl Groves - 07/04/2026

And, even moreso: beware of companies who sell them. I performed my first professional accessibility audit in 2006. Since that time, I’ve performed hundreds of accessibility audits for everything from small websites to massive standalone kiosks in Manhattan. I’ve done audits for small one-person e-commerce stores and massive software companies like Google, Adobe, Microsoft, and […]

Karl Groves - 27/03/2026

A Complete Solution Built on the W3C Accessibility Maturity Model Being successful in accessibility isn’t a one-off project. Like all compliance domains, it’s an organizational capability that must be built, measured, and sustained across every function of a business, ranging from how you recruit employees to how you procure software and from how your developers […]

Karl Groves - 20/03/2026

The W3C published an updated Working Draft of WCAG 3.0 on September 4, 2025, and I’ve spent considerable time pulling it apart. The accessibility community has been tracking this specification since the first public working draft dropped in January 2021, and after years of watching the sausage get made this latest draft finally feels like […]

Karl Groves - 03/03/2026

I’ve been working in the accessibility field for over 20 years. I’ve worked as an expert witness in numerous ADA cases, performed scores of accessibility audits, trained well over 1,000 developers around the world, and consulted for some of the biggest public and private sector organizations on earth. Along the way, I’ve worked for both […]

Karl Groves - 19/02/2026

Your website just passed automated accessibility testing with a perfect 100. Your team celebrates. Your compliance officer marks it as resolved. And none of this matters because you’re still locking out millions of people from using your product. This is the reality of relying on automated accessibility tools, which catch approximately 30% of accessibility issues […]

Karl Groves - 03/02/2026

Imagine you work for a state government agency. Over the years, your department has diligently published reports, meeting minutes, forms, budget documents, and countless other materials as PDFs. A quick inventory shows thousands of them – some from last week, others dating back more than a decade. At the time they were created, nobody thought […]

Karl Groves - 30/09/2025

If you work in accessibility or are responsible for compliance at your organization, you’ve probably heard about WCAG 3.0. The W3C has been developing it for years, and the most recent Working Draft was released in September 2025. At first glance, it feels like a big leap forward: a standard that promises to address gaps […]

Karl Groves - 17/09/2025

The command line interface (CLI) remains a foundational tool in software development, system administration, and DevOps workflows. While graphical user interfaces have become more ubiquitous, the CLI endures due to its flexibility, speed, and power. Yet, for many users with disabilities, particularly those who are blind or visually impaired, command line tools can present unnecessary […]

Karl Groves - 16/09/2025