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Accessibility / Section 508 with AJAX/Atlas - Wallace B. McClure

Wallace B. McClure

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Accessibility / Section 508 with AJAX/Atlas

When people talk about Accessibility, I think of Section 508 and allowing blind/disabled people to use an application.  I put this small test of Atlas together for a blind friend of mine to test.  It is at http://216.187.235.116/atlassection508test/.  It seems that the applications runs find and he is able to see/hear the content using JAWS (www.freedomscientific.com).  So, the question is, what's the cause of the accessibility discussion with Atlas?  What are the issues?  I hear discussion but not statement of the issues.  Any information that you can provide would be appreciated.

Wally

Posted: Dec 30 2005, 01:24 PM by Wallym | with 3 comment(s)
Filed under: , ,

Comments

Andrew Kirkpatrick said:

Your friend is in forms mode (called "browse off" in Window-Eyes) when using your example. Forms mode is the mode where users are less likely to run into problems since the notion of a virtual cursor doesn't exist and the user's keystrokes interact directly with the browser. If you were using non-standard controls in order to achieve a specific appearance, you might run into more problems since screen reader users might not know about the role/state of the control, and the screen reader might have difficulty keeping an up to date off-screen model of the page when not in forms mode.
You friend also benefits from a simple linear application structure. Any change that occurs he runs into in the course of reading the document top to bottom. This gets more difficult the further the change is from the point that initiates the change, and much harder if the change happens upstream from the initiation point.
AWK
# January 4, 2006 9:34 AM

Wallym said:

Thanks for the information Andrew. :-)
# January 6, 2006 11:55 AM

mike said:

FYI, the sample (216.187.235.116/atlassection508test) is causing my browser to crash.

IE 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254

WinXP sp2

# October 29, 2007 1:04 PM
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