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Re: accessible rotating image scripts?

for

From: Christian Heilmann
Date: Jan 23, 2010 11:48PM

I think there are some amazing generalisations about ARIA being thrown
out here. Check out Todd Kloots' work with ARIA in the videos here:

http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2009/11/23/video-kloots-yuiconf2009-a11y/

My stance is that yes you can write bespoke solutions that target screen
readers and make it amazing using all kind of JavaScript tricks but I am
tired of fixing things on demand. ARIA provides us with capabilities
that browsers do not have yet, is supported by modern, free browsers and
great modern, open source assistive technologies like NVDA.

If the spokespeople of accessibility advocated those instead of trying
to cater for Jaws and IE6 all the time we'd stand a chance to make even
Google Docs and Gmail accessible. If we keep banging on about bad
outdated environments and don't even tell blind users that there are
alternatives we shouldn't be surprised if makers of web apps do not care.

As Todd says - disabled users have been conditioned to expect bad
usability and are not likely to be aware of the opportunities we have
these days (for example with proper keyboard support using Jaws) - it is
up to us to make them aware that there are already improvements. If
people for example skip Flash without even checking if it is keyboard
enabled cause they've been fooled too many times our good fight is a
lost cause.

A browser in 2010 should have a tab control, a tree widget and allow me
to pick a date in a form without me needing to write an own calendar.
Browser vendors support ARIA for that. If Jaws doesn't then maybe they
are too complacent with their monopoly in a market that *needs*
assistive technology. Microsoft was sued for making it impossibly hard
for their competition. Maybe it is time for this attitude to reach the
accessibility world, too.