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

for

From: Al Sparber
Date: Mar 4, 2009 11:55AM

Despain, Dallas wrote:
> Al,
>
> How are you going to implement rich desktop-type controls without
> aria? Using display:none? I don't think that will get you very far
> withsomething simple like an alert dialog not to speak of something
> complicated like a treeview.
>
>
> I also don't buy that the number of users with scripting off
> outnumbers the number of blind users.


Hi Dallas,

I wasn't trying to be argumentative or challenging. Sorry if it came off
that way :-) I am deeply concerned about accessibility. Rich desktop
controls are one thing and I agree they need to be accessible. Personally,
that's not what I do. As far as Ajax goes, I think any implementation cannot
be deemed accessible unless it is accessible not just to blind users, but to
motor-impaired users, and to any user that has script disabled. I certainly
don't know if there are actually more surfers running with script disabled
than there are blind surfers, though it might at the least be pretty close -
and it certainly must be a key issue in any accessibility discussion.

As for display: none, ARIA is being touted as a potential solution for it,
regardless of whether the deployment is Ajax or non-Ajax DOM scripting, and
I'm not clear (based on my testing) if ARIA is a viable solution for today.

I want to learn - and I want someone to show me how deploying ARIA today
will make a widget (be it Ajax or not) accessible today. If there is a
solution I certainly don't want to fight it.