Published by BEBEL / Interface research

A passing accessibility score is not the same as a trustworthy interface.

Across recorded prototype cycles, automated audits and structured human review caught different failures on the same surfaces.

Automated audit
Structured review
Combined findings
Correction or supersession

Two lenses, different blind spots. Findings become useful only when they change or supersede the interface.

Method: Re-audit the current artifacts with automated accessibility tooling, then compare the results with the recorded structured review across eight bounded prototype cycles.
Scope: Private prototype surfaces and their recorded corrections. This was not assistive-technology testing, disabled-user research, or a certification exercise.
Result: Automation and semantic review found different failure classes. The combined evidence corrected or superseded assumptions that either lens alone would have left standing.
Limits: A green automated result addresses the rules exercised. It does not establish accessible use, conformance, usability, or trustworthiness on its own.

The finding

Eight bounded prototype cycles corrected or superseded earlier assumptions. Automated auditing found measurable implementation defects that repeated close reading had missed. Structured review found a separate failure in the meaning of an interface that the automation did not report.

The practice

Use both lenses. Automated rules and semantic review address different problem classes.
Make consequential state visible. Evidence, uncertainty, reversibility, and human control must be visible when they affect a decision.
Keep corrections legible. A later cycle can amend or supersede an earlier conclusion without pretending the earlier work never happened.
Do not overclaim. A clean automated run is evidence about the rules it exercised—not proof of an accessible or trustworthy experience.

Limits

This is not a certification claim.

The work did not include assistive-technology testing or disabled-user research. It does not certify accessibility, usability, or conformance. The result is narrower: automated auditing and structured review produced disjoint findings on the same work, so neither should be treated as sufficient on its own.

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