A11M - Part I on A11y and LLMs

From Text to Bling: The Web's Accessibility Journey

The more I'm working with LLMs, the more I'm finding it hard to figure out what exactly is the place of accessibility in this new world. Chat interfaces take us back to the origins of the web. The internet started as text and hyperlinks only and thus was inherently accessible, even with a screen reader. As we decided to add some bling, we had to make it accessible. When we wanted images, we needed alt text. When we added videos, we needed captions and audio descriptions. Animations required reduced motion settings. As websites became richer with different types of content and controls, we created more barriers for people with disabilities and had to come up with solutions.

The 95% Problem

The problem is that on most of the internet, even though solutions are available, they are not implemented, and therefore 95% of websites have accessibility issues which create barriers for people with disabilities (according to the WebAIM Million survey). This widespread failure to implement accessibility has persisted despite decades of guidelines and best practices.

Enter the Chat Interface

Text-based chats that are also operable by conversational audio, which are the main interfaces of the new LLMs, can do what I need on the web for me—find information on websites, maybe even buy products for me. This shifts the accessibility challenge: if users primarily interact through chat interfaces rather than visiting websites directly, even inaccessible websites become usable through AI intermediaries. Of course, creating non-accessible sites remains problematic—it creates barriers for people with disabilities who don't use AI assistants, causes problems for SEO and visitor engagement, and can even hinder AI comprehension when sites lack proper structure. But if most interactions happen through chat, websites essentially become repositories of information rather than destinations, fundamentally changing what accessibility means in practice.

What does this mean for WCAG, Section 508, the European Accessibility Act, and other guidelines and legislation? Should they continue focusing on what they address today, or are there new priorities that become more important in this reality where direct website interaction might become less common? Perhaps the focus should shift towards ensuring AI systems themselves are accessible, or guaranteeing that information repositories remain machine-readable in ways that preserve accessibility through AI intermediaries?