In the past decade or so, there’s been a push to put everything online. From customer service to interactions with local and national governments, we’ve moved away from the call center to the web and self-service. That push has streamlined interactions and simplified complex relationships, but it has also shown us a significant weak spot: how poorly the web serves people who use assistive technologies.

Design for accessibility is key to any web application. We need the biggest possible reach for our code, and that means providing the necessary hooks for assistive technologies. The more provisions our code has, the better things can be for the widest number of users. Accessibility is a key foundation of modern UI development, as it helps support everyone, not only people with disabilities, but those using text-to-speech in a car, a mother holding a baby, or someone with a broken arm who has to type with one hand for a few weeks. As accessibility advocates regularly note, we are all likely to need help at some point in our lives.

Microsoft has supported accessibility features across its development tools for a long time, building them into its display platforms, including Edge, its Chromium-based browser, and the WebView2 HTML canvas control.