Contributing to NVDA as part of my university assessment has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my academic journey. Going into this project, I had a decent grasp of Python but little familiarity with real-world open-source development. I quickly learned that contributing to a mature, widely-used codebase like NVDA meant so much more than writing Python — it required understanding the ecosystem, the architecture, the tools, and, above all, the community values around accessibility and user experience.
The initial setup was a major learning curve. I spent hours troubleshooting my development environment, struggling with version-specific dependencies, obscure build errors, and platform-specific requirements like MIDL and clang-cl. Although frustrating at the time. It also reminded me how complex large-scale software really is beneath the surface.
My first contribution was small in scope but impactful: I modified the settings dialog behavior to keep focus on the “Apply” button and provide accessible feedback through a message box. At first, I implemented a visual popup, but through community feedback, I learned that visual cues alone are inaccessible to screen reader users. I revised my solution to use ui.message instead — a lightweight way to deliver verbal confirmation in a screen-reader-friendly manner. This feedback loop taught me the value of iterative design and listening to user needs, especially in accessibility development.
For my second contribution, I took on a more complex issue involving semantic interpretation of HTML elements in Chromium-based browsers. NVDA was announcing structural <header> and <footer> elements as “grouping,” even when they weren’t ARIA landmarks. This required me to dive deep into NVDA’s use of IAccessible2 attributes, analyze how roles are assigned, and modify the Chromium overlay logic. I had to learn about IA2 attributes like "tag" and "container-tag", and understand their implications on screen reader behavior. This contribution strengthened my debugging skills, deepened my understanding of assistive technologies, and reinforced the importance of semantic precision in accessibility.
Beyond the code, I learned how to collaborate in an open-source environment: how to engage respectfully with maintainers, respond to reviews, and write clear pull request descriptions that explain not just what I did, but why I did it. I gained appreciation for the scale of decisions involved in inclusive design — it’s not just about fixing bugs, but about improving lives for users with vastly different needs.
Most importantly, I walked away with a sense of confidence. I now know that I’m capable of navigating complex, unfamiliar systems, and contributing meaningfully to software that real people depend on every day. Open source can be intimidating at first, but once I pushed through the learning curve, it became incredibly empowering.
This experience has inspired me to keep contributing to open-source accessibility tools in the future — not just as a developer, but as someone who values technology that includes everyone.
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