Exactly. That’s the core of it. Accessibility isn’t really about one perfect design, it’s about whether the system can adapt to different real human needs instead of assuming one “normal” user.
High contrast helps some people, hurts others. Reduced motion matters. Larger text matters. Keyboard navigation matters. The lesson isn’t “pick the one right setting,” it’s “build the underlying structure so people can override presentation safely.”
If the semantics are good, users and assistive tech have options. If all the usability is trapped in the visual layer, things fall apart fast.
Also totally agree on advertising. A lot of ad tech is basically an anti-accessibility machine. It optimizes for attention capture, even when that makes the actual experience worse for everyone. Advertising frequently triggers me, with all the flashing and strobing and moving parts. That one was me, from the post. And I'm the one that needs the high contrast, too ;- )
right now the primary problem for hypermedia in agentic situations is the chattiness of the architecture, coupled with the geometrically expanding conversation dynamic of ReAct-style loops
some models are able to figure out hypermedia-based APIs more easily than MCP, which is very particular in its syntax, but for more advanced models MCP wins based on the "show me everything at once" model
That makes sense. That “show everything at once” approach probably reduces some of the back-and-forth that hypermedia workflows rely on.
It’s interesting that some models can infer structure from hypermedia more easily. That seems like another place where semantic structure ends up helping both humans and machines interpret an interface. NICE!
That curb cut example is a great example of the pattern.
Improvements aimed at a specific accessibility need often end up benefiting more people than expected.
While thinking about this, I realized that accessibility often acts like a kind of stress test for design assumptions. If something only works under ideal conditions, accessibility issues tend to surface those weaknesses very quickly. (I wish I'd known that when I was a tester!)
That’s a good point. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation can all affect readability. A lot of modern design trends assume perfect reading conditions and typical visual processing.
When those assumptions break, accessibility issues start showing up very quickly.
High contrast helps some people, hurts others. Reduced motion matters. Larger text matters. Keyboard navigation matters. The lesson isn’t “pick the one right setting,” it’s “build the underlying structure so people can override presentation safely.”
If the semantics are good, users and assistive tech have options. If all the usability is trapped in the visual layer, things fall apart fast.
Also totally agree on advertising. A lot of ad tech is basically an anti-accessibility machine. It optimizes for attention capture, even when that makes the actual experience worse for everyone. Advertising frequently triggers me, with all the flashing and strobing and moving parts. That one was me, from the post. And I'm the one that needs the high contrast, too ;- )