[vicsireland] AJAX and accessibility - Jaws to the rescue?
- From: "Tony Murray" <Tony.G.Murray@xxxxxx>
- To: "VICS" <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:06:19 +0100
Hi VICSonians,
Saw the below article on the BCAB list, might be of interest to some of you.
Best wishes,
Tony
AJAX and accessibility - Jaws to the rescue?
E-consultancy.com 23/7/07
by Chris Rourke
RIAs like Ajax often have an accessibility weak spot since they need to work
with JavaScript off to
meet the basic accessibility guidelines.
Rumour has it that the next version of the popular screen reader Jaws may be
able to handle Ajax
interfaces.
Accessify's Ian Lloyd recently made reference on his blog to rumours
regarding screen reader Jaws
9.0 possibly having support for Ajax. According to Ian's source, the release
notes for Jaws 8.0 made
reference to support for Ajax functionality, however all references were
removed prior to launch.
It would be an interesting development if Jaws 9.0 were to support Ajax.
Ajax and other similar
technologies such as Flex have revolutionised the way in which we interact
with the web and have
enhanced the user experience significantly. If this increase in usability
was available to blind or
partially sighted users then their entire experience of the web could be
different.
Presumably the new version of Jaws will be using the small data transfers
that occur in AJAX as
triggers for the screen reading interactions, rather than full page
refreshes which is currently
used. Still, careful standards-compliant coding of the page will no doubt be
necessary.
Screen reader software manufacturers have been notoriously slow to react to
Internet trends. Any
indication that they are starting to move with the times is welcome. The
other factor in the interia
is the relatively high cost of Jaws and other assistive technologies that
can deter many users from
upgrading to the latest versions.
Perhaps more significant is the presumption that where one leads the others
must follow. Freedom
Scientific's competitors would surely require to provide similar
functionality in their own
software.
Only when Jaws 9.0 is released will we finally discover whether it supports
Ajax and if so, exactly
how it will go about reading pages designed this way. Until then, we wait
with anticipation.
For those interested in the world of AJAX and the impacton accessibility a
couple other useful areas
to check out are the IBM Ajax Accessibility page by Becky Gibson, and the
W3C's ARIA framework.
Chris Rourke is the managing director of User Vision.
(Source URL)
http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/363851/ajax-and-accessibility--jaws-to-the-rescue.html
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