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What is the relationship between ARIA and Desktop Accessibility APIs?

April 26, 2017accessibility APIs ARIA desktop relationship

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What is the relationship between ARIA and Desktop Accessibility APIs?

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Desktop accessibility APIs were invented to allow developers to provide accessibility support when developing custom widgets. An accessibility API allows communication with assistive technologies about what meaning is behind the widgets’ visual presentation and visual changes. It is standard for environments to provide an accessibility API, which allows developers to enable full accessibility even when authors don’t use the pre-canned widgets. The reality is that developers often don’t want to use pre-canned widgets. For whatever reason, they design their own. The web is no different. The first desktop accessibility API was Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), which was provided for Windows developers. This was followed by Java Accessibility, Gnome’s ATK/AT-SPI, Apple’s AX APIs, Microsoft’s UI Automation, and the Linux Foundation’s IAccessible2. These APIs fill an important niche for the accessibility of any environment. ARIA is designed to map to all of these. All the information a

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Desktop accessibility APIs were invented because developers just won’t stop developing their own widgets, often even when perfectly good versions of those widgets exist. An accessibility API allows communication with assistive technologies about what meaning is behind the widgets’ visual presentation and visual changes. It is standard for environments to provide an accessibility API, which allows developers to enable full accessibility even when authors don’t use the pre-canned widgets. The reality is that developers often don’t want to use pre-canned widgets. For whatever reason, they design their own. The web is no different. The first desktop accessibility API was Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), which was provided for Windows developers. This was followed by Java Accessibility, Gnome’s ATK/AT-SPI, Apple’s Universal Access, Microsoft’s UI Automation and the Linux Foundation’s IAccessible2. These APIs fill an important niche for the accessibility of any environment. ARIA is des