How Chrome Accessibility Works

The document outlines the technical aspects of Chrome's accessibility features, detailing how accessibility is integrated into applications and web browsers. It begins by explaining that different platforms have unique accessibility APIs that assistive technologies utilize. When using standard UI toolkits, accessibility is often automatically provided for UI elements. However, developers may need to add specific accessibility properties, such as labels for images or alerts for screen readers. The document also discusses the challenges of creating custom controls, which require subclassing accessibility interfaces to ensure proper representation in accessibility APIs.

For web browsers, the document describes how a single-process browser handles accessibility by creating a corresponding accessible object for each DOM node, allowing for efficient communication with platform accessibility APIs. It highlights the complexities introduced by CSS and ARIA, which can alter the relationship between the DOM and accessibility trees. The document concludes by indicating that the next section will address the adaptations needed for a multi-process browser.

- Chrome's accessibility features rely on platform-specific APIs for assistive technologies.

- Standard UI toolkits often provide built-in accessibility for common UI elements.

- Custom controls require subclassing accessibility interfaces for proper functionality.

- A single-process browser creates accessible objects corresponding to each DOM node.

- CSS and ARIA introduce complexities in the relationship between DOM and accessibility trees.