Making AJAX Accessible
“Ask yourself “Do I really need AJAX?”. If yes use progressive enhancement. This means build a standard application then overlay with AJAX i.e. HIJAX.
The RNIB UK wrote a good article about it that says: “Early in Spetember I presented at the Irish Design for All e-Accessibility Network on accessibility and AJAX. It was a great opportunity to meet people and discuss issues as well as a chance to listen to presentations given by Steve Faulkner from The Paciello Group, Joshua O’Conner from National Council for the Blind of Ireland and Des Traynor from iQcontent.”
In short it describes four steps of AJAX accessibility:
- Step 1: Content
- Step 2: Mark up content semantically (X)HTML
- Step 3: Add the presentation layer CSS
- Step 4: Add the behaviour DOM Scripting”
This is a wonderfully put-together article, very straight forward and informative. The tips are laid out in easy to follow pointers and, even better, the author links to web pages for fully fleshed out examples. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to build a page using AJAX, but worries about its accessibility issues.
RSS/XML