Automated accessibility tools lie to you by omission. Axe and Lighthouse miss 60 to 70 percent of WCAG violations, meaning the green checkmark in your CI pipeline is not a guarantee, it is a floor.
The article breaks down why rule-based scanners fail: they cannot infer intent, test keyboard navigation flows, or evaluate screen reader announcement order. These are not edge cases. They are the core of accessible UX. The Playwright-specific patterns covered here address exactly that gap, showing how to write tests that simulate real assistive technology behavior rather than just auditing static DOM attributes.
If your accessibility strategy starts and ends with axe-core, this is required reading. The specific test patterns for focus management, ARIA live regions, and modal traps are worth the full walkthrough.
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