Do accessibility overlay widgets actually work?

No. Overlays cannot fix semantic problems because they cannot know what your images depict or whether your headings are meaningful. Hundreds of US lawsuits have been filed against sites that had one installed, and many disabled users report they interfere with the assistive technology already configured.

How do I test my website with a screen reader?

Install NVDA on Windows or turn on VoiceOver on a Mac — both are free — then navigate your site by headings and by links rather than reading it top to bottom. Ten minutes of that changes how you write markup permanently.

What is the minimum colour contrast for website text?

WCAG 2.2 AA requires 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text — 18.66px bold or 24px regular and above — plus 3:1 for interface components and meaningful graphics. Most body copy and most button labels are normal text, so 4.5:1 is the number that usually applies.

Accessibility

Does a Lighthouse accessibility score of 100 mean my site is accessible?

No. Automated tools detect roughly a third of WCAG failures, because most real barriers are semantic rather than syntactic. A perfect score means nothing mechanically detectable is broken — which is worth having and is not the same as a site people can use.

Answered by Anas Bin Masud 181 words 3 sections

What the score does and does not cover

Detected: Missing alt attributes, contrast failures, missing labels, invalid ARIA, missing lang.
Not detected: Whether alt text is accurate, whether headings describe their sections, whether focus order is logical, whether a modal can be escaped, whether an error message helps.

The example that makes it concrete

An image with alt="image" passes every automated check. So does a page where all forty links say "click here", and a form whose error messages appear only as red borders. All three are serious barriers and none produce a failing score.

What to do with a perfect score

Treat it as the starting line. Unplug the mouse and tab through the site, then turn on a screen reader and navigate by headings and links. That afternoon finds more than the score ever will.

The longer version

This answer is deliberately short. If you want the full treatment, Website accessibility, without the compliance theatre covers it in about 5 minutes — free, ungated, written from client work.

Who answered this

Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan — fifteen live client sites, six of them stores taking real payments. These answers come from those projects rather than from a content brief. More about how I work, or ask me something directly.