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Simon Mak
Simon Mak

Posted on • Originally published at github.com

Why AI Agents Need Accessibility Skills: Building WCAG AAA Compliance Into AI Code Generation

I have open-sourced a toolkit that is both a traditional design system and an AI agent skill for building WCAG 2.2 AAA compliant web applications.

GitHub: simonplmak-cloud/wcag-aaa-web-design

My goal was to solve two problems at once:

The ESG Problem

Companies need a reliable way to meet digital accessibility requirements (such as the European Accessibility Act, effective June 2025) for their ESG social responsibility goals. Digital inclusion is a key part of the "S" in ESG. This toolkit provides a production-ready, token-based design system for building enterprise web applications that meet the highest accessibility standard.

The AI Problem

AI coding agents are powerful, but they often generate inaccessible code. This creates a future where the automated web is unusable for people with disabilities. This project is structured as an AI agent skill, meaning an AI assistant can use it to autonomously build a fully compliant website by enforcing accessibility at the component and template level.

Why These Two Problems Are Connected

AI agents navigate the web using the same Accessibility Tree as screen readers. Research shows agents are significantly more effective on accessible sites (~85% task success vs. ~50% on inaccessible ones). By making accessibility a core part of the AI development process, we ensure the agent-driven web is inclusive by default.

What the Toolkit Includes

  • A full, token-based corporate design system (CSS custom properties, no hardcoded values)
  • Secure, responsive, accessible HTML/CSS/JS templates (header, footer, data tables, sidebar navigation, empty states)
  • In-depth reference guides on WCAG 2.2 AAA compliance, ARIA patterns, enterprise UX, security, and error handling
  • Automated validation scripts (contrast checking, pa11y auditing)
  • Framework-agnostic: works with any tech stack

The Bigger Picture

This is an attempt at responsible innovation. As AI agents increasingly write our code and navigate our websites, accessibility is no longer just about compliance. It is the shared interface between humans and machines. Building for accessibility is building for the AI agent economy.

I would welcome any feedback on this approach, or contributions to the project.


Repository: github.com/simonplmak-cloud/wcag-aaa-web-design
License: MIT

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