Checklist Accessibility

A critique of accessibility practice in which organisations treat accessibility as a set of discrete technical checks to be ticked off (alt text present, ARIA labels declared, contrast ratios met) rather than as ongoing engagement with disabled users. Checklist accessibility can produce code that passes automated audits and legal conformance reviews while still leaving the underlying experience hostile — 'compliant but not inclusive'. The critique has become especially salient with policy regimes like the European Accessibility Act, the Accessible Canada Act, and the proposed US Online Accessibility Act, which create pressure for fast remediation that incentivises checklist approaches over the slower work of co-design and genuine inclusion.