How to enable Accessibility features in Visual Studio 2026

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How to enable Accessibility features in Visual Studio 2026

Bajwa, Rick 20

How to enable Accessibility features in Visual Studio 2026. I need to fix WCAG 2.2 issues in HTML for web apps. How do I use Visual Studio 2026 built-in features and enable them.

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Brian Pham (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 1,170 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi @Bajwa, Rick ,

Thank you for sharing the detailed information you received. I understand that you are developing web applications in Visual Studio 2026 and want to identify and remediate WCAG 2.2 issues in HTML.

Visual Studio 2026 does not currently document a built-in WCAG 2.2 accessibility checker for web applications. Therefore, there is no Visual Studio setting that you need to enable to obtain the web accessibility features described in the information you shared.

For web applications, Microsoft’s documented approach is to run the application from Visual Studio and test the rendered page using Accessibility Insights for Web in Microsoft Edge.

You can use it as follows:

Install Accessibility Insights for Web in Microsoft Edge.
Run your web application from Visual Studio.
Open the running application in Microsoft Edge.
Open Accessibility Insights from the browser’s Extensions menu.
Run FastPass to identify common, high-impact accessibility issues.
Use the reported findings to correct the relevant HTML, CSS, or JavaScript in Visual Studio.
Run Assessment for a guided evaluation against WCAG 2.2 Level AA success criteria.
Repeat the tests for each relevant page, dialog, component state, and core user flow.

You can also use Microsoft Edge DevTools to inspect individual elements, including text contrast, accessible names and roles, keyboard focusability, and the accessibility tree. Because automated tools cannot identify every accessibility issue, testing should also include keyboard navigation, screen readers, zoom, high-contrast mode, and interactive user flows.

Please note that Accessibility Insights for Web runs as a browser extension alongside Visual Studio. You use Visual Studio to modify the source code and Microsoft Edge to evaluate the rendered web application.

You’re also welcome to share your feedback on my response by following this guidance .

Have a nice day! I look forward to hearing from you.

Brian Pham (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 1,170 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-10-29T03:06:49.36+00:00

Hi @Bajwa, Rick ,

If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please feel free to let me know in the comments anytime. I’ll be happy to help.
Brian Pham (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 1,170 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-11-02T02:35:22.2666667+00:00

Hi @Bajwa, Rick ,

I hope you’re doing well. I haven’t heard back from you recently, so I hope the information provided helped with your question.

If you need any further assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out whenever it’s convenient for you. I’ll be glad to help.

Thank you!
Bajwa, Rick 20 Reputation points

2026-11-02T15:18:26.86+00:00

thanks for the answer
Bajwa, Rick 20 Reputation points

2026-11-02T15:21:58.4466667+00:00

Is there a plug-in we can add to Visual Studio to support Accessibility testing. And also is there a specific version of Visual Studio such as 2022 or 20?? that will support it better than 2026. And also is there a way to connect the build to a tool like Insights so that when the build runs it automatically invokes Insights and fails a build if there an automated check fails.
Brian Pham (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 1,170 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-11-03T03:15:21.0833333+00:00
Hi @Bajwa, Rick ,

Thank you for the follow up, for your quesion:

Is there a plug-in we can add to Visual Studio to support Accessibility testing.

For interactive web accessibility testing, you can use Accessibility Insights for Web alongside Visual Studio. It runs as an extension in Microsoft Edge and provides FastPass for common high-impact issues and Assessment for evaluating applicable WCAG 2.2 Level AA success criteria. Resources for accessibility testing documents this workflow.

There is also an older Visual Studio Marketplace extension named Web Accessibility Checker, which provides similar in-IDE functionality by testing the rendered DOM and reporting findings in the Visual Studio Error List. However, its Marketplace listing supports only Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and 2019 (x86), and it does not specifically document WCAG 2.2 support. Therefore, I do not recommend downgrading Visual Studio solely to use this legacy extension.

is there a specific version of Visual Studio such as 2022 or 20?? that will support it better than 2026.

This web accessibility testing workflow is not dependent on a specific Visual Studio version. You can continue using Visual Studio 2026.

Moving to Visual Studio 2022 or an earlier version would not provide a more complete built-in WCAG 2.2 checker for general HTML web applications.

is there a way to connect the build to a tool like Insights so that when the build runs it automatically invokes Insights and fails a build if there an automated check fails.

Yes. However, Accessibility Insights for Web is primarily an interactive browser extension and is not documented as a build task.

For automated build validation, you can:

Build and start the web application in a test environment.

Run browser-based tests using Playwright.

Run axe-core accessibility checks against the required pages and application states.

Configure the tests to fail when violations matching your team’s policy are found.

Include the tests in Azure Pipelines, GitHub Actions, or your existing CI system.

If you found my response helpful or informative, I would greatly appreciate it if you could follow this guide for your confirmation. Thank you.
Brian Pham (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 1,170 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-11-05T02:23:45.7666667+00:00

Hi @Bajwa, Rick ,As I haven’t heard back from you for some time, I hope the information I shared helped with your question.

If you still need assistance or have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out whenever it’s convenient for you. I’ll be happy to help.

If you found my response helpful or informative, I would greatly appreciate it if you could follow this guide for your confirmation. Thank you.

2 additional answers

Your answer

Brian Pham (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 1,170 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-10-29T03:06:49.36+00:00

Hi @Bajwa, Rick ,

If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please feel free to let me know in the comments anytime. I’ll be happy to help.
Brian Pham (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 1,170 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-11-02T02:35:22.2666667+00:00

Hi @Bajwa, Rick ,

I hope you’re doing well. I haven’t heard back from you recently, so I hope the information provided helped with your question.

If you need any further assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out whenever it’s convenient for you. I’ll be glad to help.

Thank you!
Bajwa, Rick 20 Reputation points

2026-11-02T15:18:26.86+00:00

thanks for the answer
Bajwa, Rick 20 Reputation points

2026-11-02T15:21:58.4466667+00:00

Is there a plug-in we can add to Visual Studio to support Accessibility testing. And also is there a specific version of Visual Studio such as 2022 or 20?? that will support it better than 2026. And also is there a way to connect the build to a tool like Insights so that when the build runs it automatically invokes Insights and fails a build if there an automated check fails.
Brian Pham (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 1,170 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-11-05T02:23:45.7666667+00:00

Hi @Bajwa, Rick ,As I haven’t heard back from you for some time, I hope the information I shared helped with your question.

If you still need assistance or have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out whenever it’s convenient for you. I’ll be happy to help.

If you found my response helpful or informative, I would greatly appreciate it if you could follow this guide for your confirmation. Thank you.

Answer 1

Visual Studio 2026 does not have a documented built-in HTML checker for WCAG 2.2; run the web app in Microsoft Edge and use Accessibility Insights for Web’s FastPass and Assessment workflows instead.

Test HTML against WCAG 2.2

Install Accessibility Insights for Web from https://accessibilityinsights.io/.
Start the web application from Visual Studio and open it in Microsoft Edge.
Open Accessibility Insights for Web from the browser extensions menu.
Run FastPass first. It performs quick automated checks for common, high-impact problems.
Correct the reported HTML, CSS, and interaction issues in Visual Studio.
Run Assessment for the page and complete its guided automated and manual tests. Assessment is the Microsoft-documented workflow for evaluating WCAG 2.2 Level AA success criteria.^1^
Repeat the assessment for every distinct page, state, dialog, and core user flow. Automated checks cannot find every accessibility problem, so keyboard, screen-reader, zoom, high-contrast, and interactive testing remain necessary.^1^

For an individual element, press F12 in Edge, select the Inspect tool, and hover over the element. The accessibility overlay reports:

Text contrast
Accessible Name and Role
Whether the element is keyboard-focusable^2^

A typical corrected form might look like this:

<form>
  <label for="email">Email address</label>
  <input id="email"
         name="email"
         type="email"
         autocomplete="email"
         aria-describedby="email-help"
         required>
  <p id="email-help">Enter an address such as [Email].</p>
  <button type="submit">Create account</button>
</form>

Use native HTML elements and explicit labels before adding ARIA. Then retest the rendered page, because accessibility depends on the resulting DOM, styles, and runtime behavior—not only the source file.

Why the Visual Studio checker does not appear for HTML

The Integrated Accessibility Checker documented for Visual Studio scans running XAML desktop applications—WPF, UWP, WinUI 3, and MAUI through WinUI—not general HTML/web content. For those supported desktop projects, start debugging and select either:

Show Accessibility Checker on the in-app toolbar, or
Scan for Accessibility Issues in Live Visual Tree.

Results appear in the Accessibility Checker panel and can be rescanned after applying changes.^3^

Older documentation mentions Tools > Check Accessibility for HTML, but it links to a previous-version Visual Studio checker and does not establish current Visual Studio 2026 or WCAG 2.2 support.^4^

Visual Studio’s own accessibility settings

These settings make the IDE itself easier to use; they do not analyze the website for WCAG compliance:

Tools > Options > Environment > Visual Experience: choose a theme, including extra-contrast or system settings.
In Visual Studio 2026 18.11 or later, open Tools > Options and search for Fonts and Colors.
Before 18.11, use Tools > Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors to change editor font, size, foreground, and background colors.^5^

For repeatable delivery, add automated accessibility checks to pull requests or CI, fail builds for critical regressions, and retain manual keyboard and screen-reader validation for cases requiring human judgment.^6^

References

Answer 2

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