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Re: Standards question

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From: Jared Smith
Date: Sep 15, 2009 4:05PM

I agree with Jukka - focus on accessibility, not just compliance. Both
Section 580 and WCAG 2 require that the site be accessible whether it
relies on javascript or not. Neither of these guidelines require that
the page work without javascript.

Whether you should require javascript or whether your application
should work if javascript is disabled is a general usability issue,
not an accessibility issue. As far as I've ever seen, the prevalence
of javascript is no different for those with disabilities than it is
for anybody else. In other words, if your web site requires
javascript, it's not accessible to anybody that has javascript
disabled or unavailable, regardless of whether they have a disability.
Neither 508 nor WCAG 2 address this because it's not directly an
accessibility issue. So if your intention is simply to meet these
guidelines and you're comfortable alienating a significant number of
users who have javascript disabled, then yes, you can build something
that requires javascript.

Jared Smith
WebAIM