Accessibility Overview

Articles and Featured Content

Engineering Software for Accessibility: Resources by Chapter
Links to additional resources that support Engineering Software for Accessibility

Text-to-Speech: Accessibility Feature for Silverlight 3.0 Applications
Learn how to create accessible Silverlight 3.0 applications using text-to-speech functionality.

Left-Handed Mouse Pointers
These left-handed Windows Vista mouse pointers are designed for left-handed users. They point to the right, instead of the left, which may feel more natural for left-handed users. The pointers are available in three sizes--standard, large, and extra-large.

Bull's Eye Mouse Pointer
This circular mouse pointer changes into a red bull's eye when you hover over clickable controls on a Web page.

Windows Automation API Overview
This overview highlights the similarities and differences between Microsoft Active Accessibility and UI Automation, describes the components and features that enable the two technologies to work together, and provides guidelines for choosing which technology to implement.

Making Custom Controls Accessible
Learn how to make a custom control accessible. Techniques range from creating or overriding properties with Dynamic Annotation, to using the new IAccessibleEx interface to add UI Automation support to controls that already support Microsoft Active Accessibility.

Programming for Ease of Access
The Ease of Access Center brings together functionality for accessibility and ease of use and enables users to configure their computers to suit their physical and cognitive needs.

Projects from CodePlex

Accessible Media Player
Accessible Media Player is a basic video player that demonstrates how to achieve WCAG 2.0 AAA accessibility using Silverlight.

MsaaVerify
MsaaVerify is a testing tool that verifies whether properties and methods off of the IAccessible interface (aka Microsoft Active Accessibility) meet the guidelines specified in the MSAA documentation on MSDN.

UI Accessibility Checker
UI Accessibility Checker (or AccChecker) enables testers without prior experience to easily discover accessibility problems with Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) and other user interface(UI) implementations for Windows.

UI Automation Verify (UIA Verify) Test Automation Framework
UIA Verify is a test automation framework that facilitates manual and automated testing of the Microsoft User Interface (UI) Automation Provider implementation of a control or application.

Webcam-based Laser Tracking for Human-Computer Interaction
This project presents an alternate way to communicate with computers using a laser pointer.

NLarge
NLarge is a for technical presentations. It magnifies the screen through a smooth animation and allows you to pan and zoom around the magnified screen.

Multi-Touch Vista
Multi-Touch Vista is a user input management layer that handles input from various devices (touchlib, multiple mice, etc.) and normalizes it against the scale and rotation of the target window.

Videos

Reaching out via Twitter and Facebook
Windows Developer Content and Community team is sharing news and guidance for Windows developers via Twitter and Facebook.

Imagine Cup 2008: Interview with Surya Vanka
Microsoft's Annuska Perkins and Surya Vanka chat about the Imagine Cup's new accessibility category in the Interface Design competition and its impact on the industry's future developers.

Imagine Cup 2008: Interview with Tracy Gray
Microsoft's Annuska Perkins and NCTI Director Tracy Gray talk about the new accessibility category in the Interface Design competition and chat about the National Center for Technology and Innovation's focus for the future.

ICCHP 2008: Interview with Jim Fruchterman
Microsoft's Annuska Perkins interviews Jim Fruchterman about Benetech's Bookshare.org project.

Using UI Automation to Build a Screen Reader, Part 1
Learn how to use Microsoft UI Automation to build a screen reader application. Thomas Logan from BayFirst Solutions shows you how in Part 1 of a five-part podcast series.

Using UI Automation to Build a Screen Reader, Part 2
Part 2 of a five-part podcast series.

Using UI Automation to Build a Screen Reader, Part 3
Part 3 of a five-part podcast series.

Using UI Automation to Build a Screen Reader, Part 4
Part 4 of a five-part podcast series.

Accessibility and Automation Forum

Discuss issues related to using Microsoft technologies to enable accessibility and GUI automation.

i can't type with my keyboard -tried on sceen key board now my regular keyboard will not respond-please help ! i want my regular keyboard
Tuesday, Feb 9 by babs page
ITextsharp and Jaws
Monday, Feb 8 by OK24
AutomationElementCollection ?
Monday, Feb 8 by Ritu.Net
On-Screen Keyboard
Sunday, Feb 7 by TOMBUG22
Can't find control with UISpy or UIAVerify
Friday, Feb 5 by Throndorin
error 'System.InvalidOperationException' occurred in UIAutomationClient.dll Fatal error: Value is read-only."?
Thursday, Feb 4 by Ritu.Net
how I can get control handler using control id using win32 api in c#?
Thursday, Feb 4 by Ritu.Net
UI Automtion of ActiveX Element
Thursday, Feb 4 by skglobussoft
Get the urls of all opened tab in Chrome
Wednesday, Feb 3 by Danhvc
Remote Desktop Client Window doesn't fit to the size of the host window
Thursday, Jan 28 by GaneshMsn18

Windows UI Automation Blog

The official blog of the Microsoft Windows UI Automation & Accessibility Team.

Transitioning to Windows 7 whitepaper
We are excited to share that the “Transitioning to Windows 7” Accessibility whitepaper has been released to the web . The article is featured on the W... more

CodePlex project: UiaCoreWrapper
Over the Christmas break, one of our very talented Windows developers, Michael Bernstein, posted a CodePlex project called ‘UI Automation COM-to-.NET... more

Windows Automation API 3.0 has shipped!
Greetings, I am proud to announce that our Windows Automation API 3.0 Platform has shipped to Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Wind... more

Microsoft Accessibility Labs Blog

Microsoft Accessibility Labs shares the latest developments in accessibility.

Microsoft Accessibility Perspective on Federal Communications Commission Issues
Recently, Microsoft participated in a field hearing held by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. There are critical issues for people... more

Invitation to participate in Microsoft online survey of computer users who have low vision
Hi. I am working on a research project to understand how people optimize their computer to make it easier to see. We just kicked off an online s... more

Trip Report: Accessibility research conference, DSAI 2009, sponsored by Microsoft
The research presented at the 2009 DSAI conference proved to be representative sampling of the types of research happening in universities a... more

Accessibility