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Re: When will developers be able to rely on ARIA?

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Mar 4, 2009 8:30AM

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 8:19 AM, Despain, Dallas wrote:
> But when will we be able to release such technology with confidence that users will reap the benefits?

Now! You lose nothing by implementing it now. If site visitors are
using an older screen reader or browser that does not utilize ARIA,
they don't get the enhanced accessibility. While you should do what
you can to make it accessible without ARIA, if you implement ARIA you
can only make things better for those that have compatible
technologies.

Based on our screen reader survey results, it appears that most screen
reader users have relatively up-to-date browsers and screen readers.
I'd say the vast majority of them have ARIA compatible user agents
now. An IE8 release with proper ARIA support will only increase
adoption.

Jared Smith
WebAIM