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Re: Are headless Drupal pages accessible?

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From: Philip Kiff
Date: Jun 7, 2018 6:06AM

Headless Drupal refers to the idea of using Drupal for your "back end"
or database/API and using something else for your "front end" that
renders the site content into HTML. If you remove Drupal's (very
accessible!) front end and replace it with your own, then making your
front end accessible becomes your responsibility. And whether your front
end is accessible is then entirely up to you and your team, not Drupal.

John P. Lee wrote:
> We're wondering about the accessibility of headless Drupal because it relies on javascript to render and serve content.
It is useful here to distinuguish between client-side scripts and
server-side scripts. I'm not sure that you would absolutely *have* to
use Javascript to generate database calls - you could probably use PHP
and MySQL to make database calls like regular Drupal does. But if you do
use Javascript, then it could run on your server instead of in the
client's web browser. That's up to you and whoever builds your new front
end code.

You could also build an "isomorphic" web application that first tried to
run Javascript in the client browser and then fell back to running it
server-side if the client failed to run it.

I think the Tonight Show may be using an isomorphic version of Headless
Drupal based on React:
https://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show
You'll notice that if you turn off Javascript, the site loads up just
fine, it just doesn't display all the moving parts with their bells and
whistles. But making it work well in both those browser cases is A LOT
of work, I am sure.


John P. Lee wrote:
> In other words, if nothing on a web page were to load when a visitor has javascript disabled (or when their browser doesn't process javascript at all), would that be an accessibility liability, or would we be meeting the accessibility requirements if we choose to only serve content to visitors with javascript enabled?
On 2018-06-07 6:45 AM, JP Jamous wrote:
> Do not be concerned about if the user has JS turned on or off. That's a thing of the past.

I think JP is right that a lot of the accessibility questions related to
whether your site functions without Javascript may be less of an
accessibility barrier now. And guidelines and checklists are changing to
reflect that.

However, if a site does not function without Javascript, then it may
fail in various other ways: you will certainly lose some percentage of
visitors because a site that requires Javascript can cause problems for
people accessing your site using ad blockers, older cellphones, or
slower connections. The best sites continue to ensure that they work
well without Javascript.

It is definitely worth asking whether Headless Drupal is the right
choice for your project, if your team is worried about whether it can
build an accessible, usable front end that doesn't require client-side
javascript.

Phil.

Philip Kiff
D4K Communications