2025 was amazing for accessibility, no doubt about it. Especially here in Europe – we got European Accessibility Act (EAA) and, if nothing else, it raised awareness. And for some organizations that is key (they acted on the act). There are also darker sides of this increased awareness – ranging from sudden magical expert talents and bragging marketing based on snake-oil AI powered solutions that (over)promise guaranteed compliance via magic JavaScript dependency.
Some still obviously ignore accessibility, on the other hand, but I think we also have some organizations that put too much trust into technology and providers of it, solely based on their claims or their authority (“if big tech is doing it – it is for sure accessible”). Searching for “accessible design system” and just trusting it that it really is as accessible as it gets (some like to say the word compliant), or perhaps more common in these days – asking Large Language Model (LLM or just AI) to make code accessible and trusting it actually is (in terms of WCAG success criteria at least – conformance).
We need to be able to check if accessibility claims are true for ourselves – for that we still need manual skills as only some parts can be automated. Some may outsource, at least before they get to a decent level of understanding (danger, danger – please don’t be overconfident and verify). And with time and experiences we make things better. Ideally, we also contribute, at least open issues for open source, and when we have the resources give back with fixes.
But there is another situation that can be extremely frustrating. The situation of platforms that help us being more effective and consistent, but that silently neglect or totally fail when it comes to accessibility. In my experience it is way easier to fix web based accessibility issues when I compare them to native mobile app issues. Especially when organizations use frameworks that offer single code-base for web, Android and iOS – the cross-platform app platforms.
There I see most of accessibility “whack-a-mole”, when some issues get fixed and sometimes break other things. And for 2026 I really wish that such major platforms (often backed by big-tech) get their systems in place and prevent accessibility issue whack-a-moles on a systematic level – I miss the accessibility governance (sorry to say that if there is one, it is not working well). We need accessibility, more than ever. We have the awareness, we have the momentum. But all of it does not help if people (that originate mostly from web development) use frameworks that empower them to make native applications, but they don’t have the possibility to make them accessible and need to rely on the platform to fix them. Which has a lot of issues, thus making end results inaccessible even when developers try their best.
Just open your favorite cross-platform repository and filter by accessibility – I am certain you will be surprised negatively. Let me help you with a couple of telling examples:
- React Native – keyboard bug reported in 2021, fixed in 2025 (opens in new window),
- React Native – accessibilityLabel ignored on TextInput (opens in new window),
- Abra wrote about Flutter upgrade that broke headings (opens in new window).
I really hope that EAA will provide the momentum also for these platforms – making them accessible from inside out will help with accessibility of between 13 and 22% of native mobile apps that were made with cross-platform frameworks (opens in new window).
Until then – please do your due diligence and check open accessibility issues on platforms that you want to use. You can get a lot of (negative) surprises and some of them are often total show-stoppers when you want to make apps accessible (as much as possible). Perhaps (I hope) AI will enable more and better fixes or even minimize the need for cross-platform frameworks altogether. As I often see that native-native mobile apps are usually more accessible than cross-platform ones. And not only that. With recent positive awareness trends we see that organizations trying to do the right thing – making their products accessible – can not do that because of the limitations on their platforms.
I hope that 2026 will bring proactive accessibility governance to more organizations, and large platforms should lead with example. It’s similar as with Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) – enabling creators do things (more) accessible inside out. Platform accessibility enabling developers with accessible defaults is a good start and perfect companion to new state of accessibility awareness.
Happy and accessible 2026!
