Generative accessibility

Generative accessibility is accessibility in a world of generated interfaces. Instead of adapting a visual artefact, a system renders information natively from shared semantic source data into whatever form the person, or agent, needs. For a sighted user, a dashboard; for a blind user, a navigable summary or a structured feed; for an AI agent, function calls. None is the original; none is the translation.

The move from classical accessibility to generative accessibility marks the step from Type 0 to Type I on the Tyrer Accessibility Scale. Classical accessibility is the floor; generative accessibility is the adaptive ceiling above it. In the Tyrer Framework's image, the web becomes a quantum web.

Why now

AI agents and assistive technology have converged: both need explicit intent, deterministic state, clear hierarchy and no visual noise. For decades the accessibility community asked for semantic structure as a niche accommodation; now the whole industry is restructuring to expose it for agents. "Accessibility is no longer a sidecar; it is the human-facing expression of the agent interface." For the first time, mainstream economic incentives line up with accessible design.

The dangers

• Fragmentation: if every user gets a different rendering, shared reference disappears, and a disabled user may be trapped in a "simplified" reality they can't see past.
• Silent failure: a system that infers confusion and quietly simplifies an interface leaves the user unaware of what was lost: "invisible, systemic discrimination operating at the level of inference rather than design".
• The verification burden: a blind user handed a generated summary must wonder whether it reflects the data or the system's guess, a cognitive tax that falls on those already working hardest.

The answer is governance rather than compliance, starting with the Right to Inspect.

In practice

The Zero Information Casualty standard is an expression of generative accessibility. It doesn't try to make one perfect page for everyone, which it says no standard can honestly do; it secures the substrate from which many renderings can be made.

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.