Accessibility in Windows 11 and Windows 10

Article
11/28/2023

Accessibility hero image

Build accessibility into your applications to empower people of all abilities

Products and services—including electronic media—are accessible when they are designed to provide full and successful experiences for as many people as possible.

Build accessible and inclusive Windows applications, with improved functionality and usability, for people with disabilities (both temporary and permanent), personal preferences, specific work styles, or situational constraints (such as shared work spaces, driving, cooking, glare, and so on). Some common solutions include providing information in alternative formats (such as captions on a video) or enabling the use of assistive technologies (such as screen readers).

Everyone should have access to the same rooms in a building, whether they need to use the stairs or the elevator.

This page provides information on how the various Windows development frameworks provide accessibility support for developers building Windows applications, assistive technology developers building tools such as screen readers and magnifiers, and software test engineers creating automated scripts for testing applications.

Platform-specific documentation

Universal Windows Platform (UWP)

Universal Windows Platform (UWP)

Develop accessible apps and tools on the modern platform for Windows applications and games on any Windows device (including PCs, phones, Xbox, HoloLens, and more), and publish them to the Microsoft Store.

Designing inclusive software

Developing inclusive Windows apps

Accessibility testing

Accessibility in the Store

Win32 platform apps

Win32 platform

Develop accessible apps and tools on the original platform for C/C++ Windows applications.

What's new in Windows accessibility and automation

Developing accessible applications for Windows

Developing accessible UI frameworks for Windows

Developing assistive technology for Windows

Testing for accessibility

Legacy accessibility and automation technology - MSAA to UI Automation

Windows Accessibility features

Guidelines for designing accessible apps

WPF platform

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

Develop accessible apps and tools on the established platform for managed Windows applications with a XAML UI model and the .NET Framework.

Accessibility Best Practices

UI Automation Fundamentals

UI Automation Providers for Managed Code

UI Automation Clients for Managed Code

UI Automation Control Patterns

UI Automation Text Pattern

UI Automation Control Types

UI Automation Specification and Community Promise

Windows Forms platform apps

Windows Forms (WinForms)

Develop accessible apps and tools for managed Windows applications with a XAML UI model and the .NET Framework.

Windows Forms Accessibility

Creating an Accessible Windows Application

Properties on Windows Forms Controls That Support Accessibility Guidelines

Providing Accessibility Information for Controls on a Windows Form

Web accessibility

Design, build, and test accessible web sites in Microsoft Edge.

Introduction to web accessibility

Designing accessible websites

Building accessible websites

Testing accessible websites

Samples

Download and run full Windows samples that demonstrate various accessibility features and functionality.

Code sample browser

The new samples browser replacing the MSDN Code Gallery.

MSDN Code Gallery (GitHub archive)

Download samples for Windows, Windows Phone, Microsoft Azure, Office, SharePoint, Silverlight and other products.

Windows classic samples on GitHub

These samples demonstrate the functionality and programming model for Windows and Windows Server.

Universal Windows Platform (UWP) samples on GitHub

These samples demonstrate the API usage patterns for the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) in the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows 10 and later.

WinUI 2 Gallery

This app demonstrates the various Xaml controls supported in the Fluent Design System.