[HN Gopher] Accessibility and the agentic web
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Accessibility and the agentic web
Author : edent
Score : 22 points
Date : 2025-08-09 16:44 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tetralogical.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tetralogical.com)
| superkuh wrote:
| An agent has nothing to process if there's no text on the page.
|
| There are few things less accessible than web applications
| depending on bleeding edge javascript that might not get
| successfully executed. There are few things more accessible than
| text in an HTML web page on an HTML web site. If we really cared
| about accessibility for the differently abled we wouldn't be
| making such locked down, proprietary websites. But of course it's
| not really "we" doing this of our free will. It's corporations
| and their profit motives telling their human parts to make bad
| websites. And since that's where the money is in web dev it's
| become the default for all web devs and even shows up in
| institutional/government websites.
|
| I don't think corps are going to change and I don't think
| something other than websites is the answer like the author
| suggests. We just need actual websites with web pages with text.
| evertedsphere wrote:
| > An agent has nothing to process if there's no text on the
| page
|
| all of the major labs' flagship models are multimodal and the
| post is specifically about processing the non-text parts of the
| page
| superkuh wrote:
| A good point. I was unclear. I meant it in the sense that if
| the JS doesn't run fully successfully there won't be text, or
| images, or even source mark-up. Just some lists of remote JS
| CDN in source if anything. It'll mostly just be blank.
| Nothing for the multi-modal to do either.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Why would the Javascript not run? Crawlers have been
| executing scripts for more than a decade now.
| superkuh wrote:
| Because what javascript is changes rapidly and they
| always have to change to keep up and we all agree that
| that amount of work is difficult. So, parts of JS fail
| and don't run as expected over time even with constant
| mantainence.
| evertedsphere wrote:
| the models are clicking around in real browsers
| Etheryte wrote:
| This argument makes no sense, in that case the page would
| be broken for regular users all the same. Scrapers don't
| need to use some inferior browser and then pick up the
| pieces, they can literally use the same browser all the
| regular users do.
| pverheggen wrote:
| > There are few things less accessible than web applications
| depending on bleeding edge javascript that might not get
| successfully executed. There are few things more accessible
| than text in an HTML web page on an HTML web site.
|
| It's not that simple, you can create highly conformant SPAs if
| you want, there's just more issues you have to watch out for.
| And even the best semantic HTML and ARIA will need Javascript
| for things like content replacement - for example, there are
| valid accessibility reasons why no one uses form submission for
| table filtering and sorting anymore. JS is also required for
| implementing and keyboard interactions for WAI patterns, not
| something you can get out of the box with plain HTML.
|
| Ultimately, the determining factor for a11y is not your choice
| of front-end technology, but rather whether you're willing to
| make it a priority. Janky SPAs sites have not made it one, and
| I don't think an MPA is going to fix that. Raising the bar on
| quality is really what's needed.
| electroly wrote:
| > there are valid accessibility reasons why no one uses form
| submission for table filtering and sorting anymore
|
| What are they? I was only aware of this being a performance
| and general polish issue--what's the accessibility tie-in? I
| still use form submission for this.
| avtar wrote:
| I guess it depends on how much care you're taking with
| maintaining the client's position and focus post-
| submission/page load, and then also announce what data
| changed on the page. And if someone with cognitive
| disabilities has to reorient themselves in the now updated
| page then that's probably not going to result in a great
| experience.
|
| Example table for comparison: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/a
| pg/patterns/table/examples/sort...
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(page generated 2025-08-09 23:01 UTC)