@gbarkerz.bsky.social
Another cool thing you can do with Accessibility Insights for Windows is programmatically interact with the UI Automation control patterns supported by the elements in your UI, in the same way a screen reader does.
accessibilityinsights.io/docs/windows...
accessibilityinsights.io/docs/windows...
June 2, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Another cool thing you can do with Accessibility Insights for Windows is programmatically interact with the UI Automation control patterns supported by the elements in your UI, in the same way a screen reader does.
accessibilityinsights.io/docs/windows...
accessibilityinsights.io/docs/windows...
Accessibility Insights didn't report any issues with this app's UI, but that's because the UI is completely imperceivable to Accessible Insights. A screen reader doesn't know the UI exists.
May 30, 2025 at 5:52 AM
Accessibility Insights didn't report any issues with this app's UI, but that's because the UI is completely imperceivable to Accessible Insights. A screen reader doesn't know the UI exists.
Don't forget folks, in a few seconds Accessibility Insights for Windows can highlight potential issues with your app UI. Here it reports 4 nameless elements in game UI.
accessibilityinsights.io/docs/windows...
accessibilityinsights.io/docs/windows...
May 29, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Don't forget folks, in a few seconds Accessibility Insights for Windows can highlight potential issues with your app UI. Here it reports 4 nameless elements in game UI.
accessibilityinsights.io/docs/windows...
accessibilityinsights.io/docs/windows...
All I did was add a few SemanticProperties.HeadingLevel to my #dotmetmaui Accessible Solitaire app, and hey presto, the Narrator screen reader can present a list of headings in the app's Settings page.
learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/...
learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/...
May 29, 2025 at 7:46 PM
All I did was add a few SemanticProperties.HeadingLevel to my #dotmetmaui Accessible Solitaire app, and hey presto, the Narrator screen reader can present a list of headings in the app's Settings page.
learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/...
learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/...
I've just fixed a bug with the accessible name of the target card piles in the #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire app, on three platforms. Three times the testing, three times the publishing, but only one code change required!
May 29, 2025 at 6:37 PM
I've just fixed a bug with the accessible name of the target card piles in the #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire app, on three platforms. Three times the testing, three times the publishing, but only one code change required!
If there's one thing the industry still seems to struggle with (despite it hardly being rocket science), is showing text that has a reasonable contrast against its background. Here's Accessibility Insights for Web reporting 51 contrast issues on one page. accessibilityinsights.io/docs/web/ove...
May 21, 2025 at 11:47 AM
If there's one thing the industry still seems to struggle with (despite it hardly being rocket science), is showing text that has a reasonable contrast against its background. Here's Accessibility Insights for Web reporting 51 contrast issues on one page. accessibilityinsights.io/docs/web/ove...
Hmm, now that the MediaElement is working in my #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire app, its UI appears outside the app too. If I can't prevent that completely, I should at try to least to stop it when all the sound options are off in the app.
May 21, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Hmm, now that the MediaElement is working in my #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire app, its UI appears outside the app too. If I can't prevent that completely, I should at try to least to stop it when all the sound options are off in the app.
And going back to that "Screen reader announce game state" button in the #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire game, this is what happens when you click it while a screen reader's running...
May 10, 2025 at 4:19 PM
And going back to that "Screen reader announce game state" button in the #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire game, this is what happens when you click it while a screen reader's running...
I just tried playing Accessible Solitaire using the Windows On-Screen Keyboard with its Scan mode and Navigation layout. I think it might be possible to play the game, but I do wonder how it might be made more efficient. Unfortunately I'd say it's really difficult to see which is the active OSK key.
May 10, 2025 at 3:57 PM
I just tried playing Accessible Solitaire using the Windows On-Screen Keyboard with its Scan mode and Navigation layout. I think it might be possible to play the game, but I do wonder how it might be made more efficient. Unfortunately I'd say it's really difficult to see which is the active OSK key.
Since that video was made, the accessibility tool shown in the video has been replaced with Accessibility Insights for Windows. But the details on UIA remain the same. Here's Accessibility Insights reporting details on the Accessible Solitaire app.
May 10, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Since that video was made, the accessibility tool shown in the video has been replaced with Accessibility Insights for Windows. But the details on UIA remain the same. Here's Accessibility Insights reporting details on the Accessible Solitaire app.
The touchpad on my laptop has finally given up the ghost, such that I can no longer click and drag with it. So I'm relying on the keyboard more than ever. I've just discovered I can crop a picture in the Photos app using only the keyboard. Thank you Photos app team! #Windows11 #accessibility
May 10, 2025 at 2:17 PM
The touchpad on my laptop has finally given up the ghost, such that I can no longer click and drag with it. So I'm relying on the keyboard more than ever. I've just discovered I can crop a picture in the Photos app using only the keyboard. Thank you Photos app team! #Windows11 #accessibility
4/5 Interestingly the toggle switch's Name is "Show state announcement button". So while it seems to the tools that there may be an issue, in fact in this unusual case, there is no issue. The purpose of the toggle switch is to toggle the visibility of another button control.
May 10, 2025 at 1:36 PM
4/5 Interestingly the toggle switch's Name is "Show state announcement button". So while it seems to the tools that there may be an issue, in fact in this unusual case, there is no issue. The purpose of the toggle switch is to toggle the visibility of another button control.
1/5 Ha! Good times! I just pointed the VS Accessibility Checker to my #dotnetmaui app's Settings page, and it reported an issue. It said I'd violated the very important rule about an element's Name not including its ControlType. Your customers really don't want to hear lots of "... button, button".
May 10, 2025 at 1:36 PM
1/5 Ha! Good times! I just pointed the VS Accessibility Checker to my #dotnetmaui app's Settings page, and it reported an issue. It said I'd violated the very important rule about an element's Name not including its ControlType. Your customers really don't want to hear lots of "... button, button".
My #dotnetmaui app's raising UIA FocusChanged events as I tab through the app, meaning Windows Magnifier can react by keeping the focused element in view. What's more, by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Enter, Magnifier will speak the name of the element with focus. Good. support.microsoft.com/windows/use-...
May 10, 2025 at 12:49 PM
My #dotnetmaui app's raising UIA FocusChanged events as I tab through the app, meaning Windows Magnifier can react by keeping the focused element in view. What's more, by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Enter, Magnifier will speak the name of the element with focus. Good. support.microsoft.com/windows/use-...
When the "You've won" window appears in my #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire app, the NVDA Speech Viewer shows that NVDA's trying to announce the window but then one of my custom announcements comes along and stomps on the original announcement. That's no good for the player so I'll have to fix that!
May 10, 2025 at 10:32 AM
When the "You've won" window appears in my #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire app, the NVDA Speech Viewer shows that NVDA's trying to announce the window but then one of my custom announcements comes along and stomps on the original announcement. That's no good for the player so I'll have to fix that!
By default, I never want to set explicitly set font point/pixel sizes, rather I select something semantic like Title/Subtitle/Header. It seems that my choice that worked fine for iOS and Android, looks rather unusual in my Windows #dotnetmaui app. Something to investigate...
May 10, 2025 at 10:05 AM
By default, I never want to set explicitly set font point/pixel sizes, rather I select something semantic like Title/Subtitle/Header. It seems that my choice that worked fine for iOS and Android, looks rather unusual in my Windows #dotnetmaui app. Something to investigate...
Windows #dotnetmaui apps can make accessing buttons super-quick thanks to support for access keys! It's not often that the UX can be improved so much with such a tiny code change! Eg windows:VisualElement.AccessKey="C". learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/...
May 10, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Windows #dotnetmaui apps can make accessing buttons super-quick thanks to support for access keys! It's not often that the UX can be improved so much with such a tiny code change! Eg windows:VisualElement.AccessKey="C". learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/...
Accessible Solitaire for Windows is an exploration into keyboard efficiency, with and without a screen reader. I've a few more fixes to make before I start seeking feedback. There are so many more shortcuts I could add to support so many ways to reduce the number of steps it takes to move a card!
May 10, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Accessible Solitaire for Windows is an exploration into keyboard efficiency, with and without a screen reader. I've a few more fixes to make before I start seeking feedback. There are so many more shortcuts I could add to support so many ways to reduce the number of steps it takes to move a card!
Curiouser and curiouser! When I programmatically set focus to the Grid containing the dealt card piles, keyboard focus seems to move fine, yet it also seems that no UIA FocusChanged event is raised. As such, a screen reader is unaware of the focus change and keeps silent. Something to investigate.
May 9, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Curiouser and curiouser! When I programmatically set focus to the Grid containing the dealt card piles, keyboard focus seems to move fine, yet it also seems that no UIA FocusChanged event is raised. As such, a screen reader is unaware of the focus change and keeps silent. Something to investigate.
How about that! Has there ever been an app created from a template which has so much helpful accessible information as soon as the app's created? Don't forget to localise the strings as necessary prior to shipping. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet...
May 7, 2025 at 9:14 AM
How about that! Has there ever been an app created from a template which has so much helpful accessible information as soon as the app's created? Don't forget to localise the strings as necessary prior to shipping. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet...
Now that I have a Windows version of the Accessible Solitaire app, I can use the very handy Accessibility Insights for Windows tool to call out some potential issues before I use a screen reader with the app. The UI hierarchy provided to screen readers seems to be a good semantic match for the game.
May 1, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Now that I have a Windows version of the Accessible Solitaire app, I can use the very handy Accessibility Insights for Windows tool to call out some potential issues before I use a screen reader with the app. The UI hierarchy provided to screen readers seems to be a good semantic match for the game.
I've been making progress on the #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire app for Windows. Here's the app running with its dark app colours and user-selected suit colours. Lots of adjustments yet to make, but I'm looking forward to user feedback to help me prioritise the work ahead!
May 1, 2025 at 9:07 AM
I've been making progress on the #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire app for Windows. Here's the app running with its dark app colours and user-selected suit colours. Lots of adjustments yet to make, but I'm looking forward to user feedback to help me prioritise the work ahead!
I've been working on a first version of Accessible Solitaire for Windows. This is made possible of course by the handy #dotnetmaui multi-platform support. The app's not published yet, but related details are at the end of github.com/gbarkerz/Acc.... I'm really looking forward to feedback on this!
April 29, 2025 at 10:08 AM
I've been working on a first version of Accessible Solitaire for Windows. This is made possible of course by the handy #dotnetmaui multi-platform support. The app's not published yet, but related details are at the end of github.com/gbarkerz/Acc.... I'm really looking forward to feedback on this!
I'm working on the Windows version of my #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire app, and I've spent soooo long not managing to style a keyboard focused CollectionView item. And perhaps I can't, github.com/dotnet/maui/.... Woe is me.
April 23, 2025 at 7:58 PM
I'm working on the Windows version of my #dotnetmaui Accessible Solitaire app, and I've spent soooo long not managing to style a keyboard focused CollectionView item. And perhaps I can't, github.com/dotnet/maui/.... Woe is me.
Like I said, I won't be offering Yellow as a suit colour until I support configurable card background colours too. Accessibility Insights reports a contrast of 1.073:1 for Yellow on White, which is far, far too low. www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/U..., www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/U...
April 4, 2025 at 7:43 AM
Like I said, I won't be offering Yellow as a suit colour until I support configurable card background colours too. Accessibility Insights reports a contrast of 1.073:1 for Yellow on White, which is far, far too low. www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/U..., www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/U...