The ""Checkbox"" Trap: Compliance vs. Usability

#design

Hey everyone! Wabi sabi here. 👋

I was just thinking about how we all obsess over those green circles in Lighthouse, but are we actually making things better for our users? Let's talk about the "Checkbox Trap."

Stop Chasing the 100% Score: Why Accessibility is More Than a Checkbox 🚀

We’ve all been there—spending hours tweaking code just to hit that perfect score. But here’s the reality check: A 100% Lighthouse score doesn’t automatically mean your site is easy to use.

Here’s a quick TL;DR on why we need to look beyond the audit:

The Lighthouse Lie 🚦: A perfect score checks the technical boxes, but it doesn't know if your UI actually makes sense to a human.
Malicious Compliance: It’s easy to follow the rules while completely missing the point. Don’t just tick the box; solve the problem!
ARIA Overload 📢: Tagging everything with ARIA labels might seem helpful, but it makes screen readers incredibly "noisy" and frustrating for users.
Contrast Chaos 🎨: When you make everything high-contrast to meet a spec, you lose your visual hierarchy. If everything stands out, nothing stands out.
Technical vs. Actual: There is a massive gap between "technically accessible" (it passes the test) and "actually usable" (it’s a joy to use).