What “accessible” means for GitHub’s new UI

GitHub’s redesigned global navigation and generally available code search were built with accessibility in mind from the start. For developers with disabilities — and for engineers new to accessibility — that raises two practical questions: what counts as an accessibility feature, and how do those features show up in a real product like GitHub?

The answers are easiest to see in concrete interactions. Two recent examples show how GitHub approaches accessibility: keyboard support in the new navigation, and screen reader support in code search.

New navigation, tested with the keyboard

Keyboard-only use is a productivity choice for some people and a hard requirement for others. When evaluating a keyboard experience for sighted users, GitHub considers three things:

  • Visible focus indicators — the user always knows where their focus is.
  • Logical tab order — pressing tab and shift+tab moves predictably through the page’s interactive elements.
  • Operable patterns — keyboard interactions follow widely accepted conventions.

These principles are applied throughout the new global navigation, which is still in preview and available via feature preview. If the feature preview itself is hard to use, the GitHub accessibility team will manually enable the navigation for you — just comment on the navigation preview discussion.

What code search sounds like

Most people don’t think about what code search is like for a screen reader user, but the audio experience is central to the new search feature. The underlying work on the QueryBuilder component is documented in creating an accessible search experience with the QueryBuilder component, a deep dive into how the component is engineered for assistive technology.

Feedback drives the next iteration

GitHub’s “ship to learn” culture means these features will keep evolving — and the accessibility team expects users to find new uses and edge cases that weren’t predicted. Feedback on the navigation, code search, or any other accessibility concern can go into the accessibility discussion. More general information about accessibility at GitHub is available at accessibility.github.com.