UI Automation Specification and Community Promise
Microsoft UI Automation is the new accessibility framework for Microsoft Windows, available on all operating systems that support Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). UI Automation provides programmatic access to most user interface (UI) elements on the desktop, enabling assistive technology products such as screen readers to provide information about the UI to end users and to manipulate the UI by means other than standard input.
UI Automation also allows automated test scripts to interact with the UI. UI Automation client applications can be written with the assurance that they will work on multiple frameworks. The UI Automation core masks any differences between the frameworks that underlie various pieces of UI. For example, the Content property of a WPF button, the Caption property of a Win32 button, and the ALT property of an HTML image are all mapped to a single property, Name, in the UI Automation view.
UI Automation provides full functionality in Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. UI Automation providers offer some support for Microsoft Active Accessibility client applications, through a built-in bridging service.