Classical accessibility

Classical accessibility is accessibility applied to fixed artefacts. A page is authored, a layout designed, a control placed, and then the artefact is made accessible with semantic markup, alt text, keyboard handlers and standards. The artefact exists in a known state, and the accessibility layer describes or adapts it.

For more than three decades it has carried real weight. Screen readers, WCAG, ARIA, semantic HTML and keyboard navigation are "an extraordinary collective achievement": the deterministic floor that prevents catastrophic information loss. Its necessity is permanent, and nothing generative replaces it.

Its limit

It was built for a web of fixed objects at fixed addresses that looked the same to everyone: in the Tyrer Framework's image, a Newtonian web. That web is disappearing. Interfaces are increasingly generated at the moment of use, and the artefact classical accessibility was designed to adapt no longer exists by the time the user arrives. Within its paradigm, visual first and adaptation second, the best it can achieve is the top of Type 0 on the Tyrer Accessibility Scale. Classical accessibility fails loudly, though: a missing label can be found and fixed. Its successor, generative accessibility, can fail silently.

Behind the scenes

A real idea, from The Tyrer Framework, by Charli-Jo Tyrer (Carrados, 2026), Part Three. This entry summarises it; the paper is the authority. A plain-language version is Why accessibility keeps getting worse.