Comment by _heimdall
14 hours ago
Please don't implement WebMCP on your site. Support a11y / accessibility features instead. If browser or LLM providers care they will build to use existing specs meant to health humans better interact with the web.
14 hours ago
Please don't implement WebMCP on your site. Support a11y / accessibility features instead. If browser or LLM providers care they will build to use existing specs meant to health humans better interact with the web.
While you absolutely should, I would argue that MCP access would be the OPTIMAL level of accessibility.
Why? What does it add that accessibility features don't cover? And of there's a delta there, why have everyone build WebMCP into their sites rather than improve accessibility specs?
Because, thinking bigger picture, having an AI assistant acting on your behalf might be more effective than slow navigation via accessibility features?
I get the wider point that if accessibility features were good enough at describing the functionality and intent then you wouldn't need a separate WebMCP.
So what does WebMCP do that accessibility doesn't?
Seems to me, at cursory reading, it's around providing a direct js interface to the web site ( as oppose to DOM forms ).
Kind of mixing an API and a human UI into one single page.
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not from a legal perspective
Or have an a11y standard for MCPs, where they can't show UI elements and have to only respond with text so that Voice Readers could work out of the box.
This would be a game changer, currenly Voice Readers do not work very well with websites and a11y is a clunky set of tags that you provide to elements and users need to move around elements with back/tab and try to make a mental model of what the website looks like. With MCP and Voice chat, it is like talking to a person.
Agreed that better browser support for accessibility tools is always welcome. I just don't think MCP is required at all there, the APIs are already well documented and built right into the browser.
Don't use accessibility features either. Just build for humans and let AI understanding take care of understanding all of the details.
Following accessibility best practice is what designing for humans looks like.
The best practices are changing. Many accessibility features were built due to the computer not being understand correctly. For example how something that looks like a checkbox despite being just a div is would not get recognized properly. Now with AI, the AI understands what a checkbox is and can understand from the styling that there is a checkbox there.
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