WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Browser version advice in accessibility statement

for

From: Aaron Leventhal
Date: Nov 4, 2011 9:57AM

Hi Kevin,

First, I think reasonable ARIA usage depends on the target audience and
type of content:

Content:
1. For critical pages, such as documentation and support, it seems
reasonable to support accessibility without ARIA -- only as a progressive
enhancement
2. For pages using dynamic content to spiffy it up, it seems reasonable to
use WAI-ARIA as a progressive enhancement.
3. For content such as rich internet applications, it seems reasonable to
use ARIA to its fullest power available today.

Target audience:
1. If targeting the broad public (e.g. a government website), it seems
necessary to stay on the safe side.
2. If targeting advanced technology users (e.g. a high tech company), it
seems reasonable to use ARIA a lot more, and to require a more advanced
browser - screen reader combo for content outside of the basics
(documentation, support, etc.)

Safe -- content for the broader public, or is primarily static HTML:
• IE7+ with JAWS 7+, NVDA 2011.1+ or Window-Eyes 5.5+, Hal (version?),
System Access (version?), etc.
• Firefox 3.6 + with JAWS 7+, NVDA 2011.1+, Window-Eyes 5.5+
• Safari 4+ with VoiceOver on Snow Leopard or later
• Mobile Safari and VoiceOver on iOS 4 or later

Full -- content for a high tech audience or must be dynamic by its nature:
• IE8+ with JAWS 10+ (unfortunately there is no live region support in
NVDA+IE)
• Firefox 3.6+ with JAWS 10+ or NVDA 2011.1+
• Safari 5+ with VoiceOver on Lion or later
• Mobile browsers: to be determined

I'm still keeping my eye on Google Chrome. That is becoming more accessible.

Finally, regarding the upgrade message. I think this can be done in a
clever, automatic way. Basically, in the "Full" case we can put in hidden
content that only non-ARIA screen reader users will hear, a friendly
message explaining that the site uses ARIA, an advanced technology for
making websites accessible, and to please press the Enter key to learn
about supported combinations. I'm looking into some code for this.

Thoughts?

Aaron

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Kevin White < <EMAIL REMOVED> > 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.
>
> I would be interested to hear any other views on this,
>
> Thanks
>
> Kevin
>