Bogdan Sikora - Accessibility and Modern Engineering

In today’s development landscape, most teams aren’t building UI components from scratch, they’re using React, Vue, and component libraries like MUI or Chakra. The era of pure HTML and CSS is behind us, yet accessibility guidelines haven’t fully caught up. As accessibility practitioners, we often say “use semantic elements,” but in reality, most engineering teams now rely on highly abstracted components where something as simple as a ComboBox might be built from dozens of divs and ARIA roles, all hidden inside a UI library. This talk explores how we can modernize our approach to accessibility by aligning it with the tools developers actually use. We’ll look at current trends in web technology, how modern development workflows really function, and practical ways to bridge the gap between ideal accessibility standards and everyday engineering realities.