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RE: Section 508 Standards Compliance and Scripts

for

From: Jim Thatcher
Date: Sep 4, 2003 8:30PM

Here's a plug for my Side-by-side comparison of WAI Priority 1 checkpoints
and Section 508 at http://jimthatcher.com/sidebyside.htm and the discussion
there about scripting.
It seems to me both simple and clear that to comply with WAI Priority 1
checkpoints, your page has to work with scripting DISABLED. And to comply
with Section 508 Standards one has to assume that scripting is ENABLED but
that the consequences of scripting have to be available to screen readers.
See http://www.jimthatcher.com/webcoursea.htm, for a description of
different categories of scripting and how they work with assistive
technology.

Jim
Accessibility, What Not to do: http://jimthatcher.com/whatnot.htm.
Web Accessibility Tutorial: http://jimthatcher.com/webcourse1.htm.


-----Original Message-----
From: Joel Ward [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 4:11 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: Section 508 Standards Compliance and Scripts

> Forgive me if I am off base. I am coming into this conversation late.
> IMO, a site is a complete accessibility failure if the content is not
usable for persons with JavaScript off/ with browsers that do not recognize
JavaScript.

I agree.

But some accessibility is better than no accessibility.

And keep in mind there are often "baseline" requirements for web sites that
include a certain browser version and/or browser functionality (e.g.
scripting enabled). Whether these sorts of requirements are valid for
public web sites is up to debate, but the fact is that this happens all of
the time.

While Section 508 is not nearly close to fulfilling Universal Access, it has
at least brough the most basic accessibility standards to the forefront. If
a user with a Javascript-enabled browser can use their assistive technology
to access a site, then at least a portion of the "spirit of the law" is
alive.



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