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Re: Ajax

for

From: John Foliot
Date: Oct 10, 2006 9:30AM

Alastair Campbell wrote:
>
> Assuming you went with the Hijax method (as Tim mentioned:
> http://domscripting.com/blog/display/41) and provided an obvious
> option to turn off the 'advanced' features, would there be any
> accessibility issues there?

Hijax currently seems to be the "Best Practice" answer for times when AJAX
is *needed* [1], and the need for an "obvious" option to turn off the
advanced feature is obviously important.

I suspect however that the bigger issue/requirement is that the AJAX widget
simply degrades gracefully without the requirement of the end user to
indicate "turn it off". Often, it may not even be an issue of turning
something On or Off, as Robert Nyman discovered one day
[http://soap.stanford.edu/show.php?contentid=65#ajax2]


>
> I've tested James Edwards AJAX test cases with recent versions of
> JAWs and Voiceover with good results (a few caveats), so things are
> improving.
>

And testing with various Adaptive Technologies is always important. But as
us "old fellers" are always reminding - this web accessibility thing is for
more than just the blind/visually impaired. Yes, AJAX appears particularly
vexing to the visually impaired, but it also impacts users of alternative
user-agents (our oft quoted "cell phones/PDA's"). And while "recent"
versions of AT are getting better at dealing with the sophisticated web
stuff that is tossed at them, what about users who are restrained from
up-grading their software? Again, a graceful fall-back is mandatory (IMHO).

Alastair, this discussion is important - AJAX isn't going away. You
mentioned that there are a few caveats based on your current testing - care
to share?

[1] "It appears to be the "must-have" technology at the moment, and a lot of
uses for it seem to be contrived. I do see a need for it, but its strength
is for web applications, rather than traditional web documents. It reminds
me a bit of when Flash first arrived on the scene, and everyone felt the
need to learn Flash in order to showcase their skills, with little regard to
the true usability of what they were doing." - Gez Lemon

Cheers!

JF
---
John Foliot
Academic Technology Specialist
Stanford Online Accessibility Program
http://soap.stanford.edu
Stanford University
560 Escondido Mall
Meyer Library 181
Stanford, CA 94305-3093