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Re: WCAG 2 and Javascript

for

From: Steve Green
Date: May 13, 2009 9:55AM

Hi Steve,

I've been looking for examples of this. Can you send me pointers. Thanks!

~Shawn


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In most cases these are sites our clients have asked us to audit, so I can't
really point the finger at them.

A common problem is where JavaScript is used to create multiple pages within
a page (to give the impression of tabs) or complex hide/reveal
functionality. Even when this is implemented in an 'accessible' manner, we
often find problems with user testing. Screen reader users often cannot form
and maintain a mental model of the page as it changes, and that is a
lmiitation of human beings, not the assistive technology. Often the Back
button does not work properly, which affects all users.

Flash content is a particular problem for users with voice recognition
software because even the most recent products see Flash as a black box.
However, the user typically knows nothing about web technologies, so they
just see text and images and wonder why they cannot interact with them.

It would be great if Nuance and Adobe would get together and sort out an API
that makes Flash content behave like text, images, buttons etc, but what's
the chance of that. Any solution that requires users to recognise Flash
content isn't a solution (e.g. using mousegrid).

Steve