WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Browser version advice in accessibility statement

for

From: Henny Swan
Date: Nov 4, 2011 9:51AM

Don't forget this is not just a browser support issue for WAI ARIA but
also an assistive tech support issue.

Screen readers have variable support for WAI ARIA and for those that
cost money it's unreasonable to expect a user to pay for the latest
version. WAI ARIA is great but should only be used if the page
absolutely can not be made accessible via other means. In other words
think about how to use it at the start of a project but implement it
only when other routes are exhausted.

At my place of work we've been trying to work out what browsers and
screen readers to best support and it is complicated. One way of
looking at it is to support the latest 3 versions of screen reader or
anything that was released up to 18 months ago.

Having a look over the WebAIM screen reader surveys does give some
anecdotal evidence of what people are using too
http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey3/

Henny

--
www.iheni.com
@iheni

On 4 November 2011 15:38, Patrick H. Lauke < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> On 04/11/2011 14:33, Kevin White wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I have a client who is doing some excellent work on creating an inclusive and engaging website. In order to do so they are drawing on the features provided in WAI-ARIA. This leads to some difficulties regarding browser and screen reader compatibility and we discussed how to address this. My personal opinion is to use part of the accessibility statement to highlight the efforts but point out the need for users to upgrade but I was curious to understand how people view this?
>>
>> My opinion is based on the idea that ARIA provides the opportunity to help users of assistive technologies but in order to do that there is a need to use a modern browser. User may not know this and by providing information around this there is an opportunity to provide wider help.
>
> Personally, I'd be all for a generic sentence mentioning that users
> should - if at all possible - be using an up-to-date version of their
> browser of choice...as long as you don't go down the "These pages are
> best viewed in BLAH" route...
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>