The other 70% live in focus order, custom widgets, and error messaging — all of which need a human on a keyboard.
Automated accessibility tooling is genuinely useful and genuinely limited. It reliably finds missing alternative text, low contrast, and unlabeled inputs. It cannot tell you whether your checkout flow is operable.
Focus management is the biggest blind spot. Modals that do not trap focus, drawers that return focus to the top of the document, and skip links that point at removed elements all pass automated checks and fail real users.
Custom widgets are the second. A div with a click handler and role="button" passes a scanner and still fails without keyboard activation, state announcement, and a visible focus indicator.
Error messaging is the third. Validation that appears visually but is never announced leaves screen-reader users stuck in a form they cannot complete, with no automated signal that anything is wrong.
The remedy is boring and effective: one manual keyboard pass and one screen-reader pass over each critical journey, every release. Automate the 30% in CI, and spend human time on the rest.
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