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Re: why would a desktop app not work with a screen reader?

for

From: Weston Thayer
Date: Dec 9, 2020 3:49PM

I wonder if the app hand rolled its UI, maybe with OpenGL (since it's cross
platform) or something. They would have implement all the low level OS
accessibility APIs themselves in that case. All MSAI would detect is the
application window.

MS Word is an example of a native app that does this, it doesn't use any
platform UI toolkits like WPF or XAML where some accessibility would come
for free. Video games can often end up in this boat as well.

Weston Thayer
https://assistivlabs.com

On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 2:01 PM glen walker < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Perhaps too broad of a question and probably depends on the technology, but
> we installed a desktop app on both the PC and the Mac and NVDA, JAWS, and
> VoiceOver could not be used with the app. You couldn't navigate to any
> elements with VO (ctrl+opt+shift+downarrow didn't do anything) and when
> tabbing on the PC, the screen reader was silent. Even Microsoft's
> Accessibility Insights couldn't find any elements in the app. Kind of hard
> to test when nothing registers with assistive technology.
> > > > >