Beyond the DOM: what’s in the accessibility tree for you?

The days that assistive technology like screen readers just scrape the DOM to present the content of a web page are long gone. These days, there are sophisticated APIs that browsers and assistive technologies use to communicate. A key part in this communication is the accessibility tree, the representation of your web page that can be queried by assistive technology. We’ll explore this tree and see how you can use it to quickly get an idea how assistive technology will present your web page. Important accessibility concepts will be explained along the way.