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Dev.to
7/11/2026
The original title is: "Lessons from a WCAG accessibility audit: keyboard navigation and DOM order failures"

The original title is: "Lessons from a WCAG accessibility audit: keyboard navigation and DOM order failures"

Original: The Accessibility Audit That Slapped Me Awake

Short summary

A developer shares humbling lessons from a third-party WCAG accessibility audit that found critical issues despite their confidence in a11y practices. Key failures included a focus trap that made modal close buttons unreachable via keyboard, and CSS reordering that broke screen reader reading order. The author now performs keyboard-only navigation passes and treats DOM order as the source of truth for content structure.

  • •Focus trap in modal made close button unreachable via keyboard navigation
  • •CSS visual reordering broke screen reader reading order — DOM order must be source of truth
  • •New workflow: keyboard-only testing pass on every feature before launch

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.

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