On 4/8/08 2:00 PM, "cf-talk" <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Cutter (CFRelated) > > I'm not positive, but I would think you're out of luck with any of the > assistives, with regards to Ajax. Most assistives won't even run > JavaScript at all (or very limited). Look at the developer plugin > category of Firefox plugins. I seem to remember several emulators that > might help you 'view' your work the way these browsers might.
This is not the case anymore. A number of Ajax toolkits, including Dojo, YUI, and jQuery (plus our own toolkit, Spry), are implementing the WAI-ARIA specification, which helps make Ajax directly accessible. Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera are building support for it in their browsers, and the two top screen readers are implementing it as well. Statements like "Most assistives won't even run JavaScript at all" have not been true for several years. _Every_ modern screen reader has some ability to deal with content manipulated by JavaScript, particularly if the developer is using the DOM to work with the content. This is one of a class of myths that used to be true maybe seven years ago, but aren't anymore. Still, they resurface with mind-numbing regularity. I don't mean to pick on any one commenter here, but when comments like this get parroted thread after thread, year after year, it makes accessibility look like the enemy of new technology, and that's bad for developers as well as users with disabilities. Please don't dismiss things like JavaScript, Ajax, Flash, Flex, or PDF out of hand with regard to disability until you've done some research on your own, and don't believe anyone who tells you "(Technology X) is inaccessible" without a _very_ comprehensive body of supporting material. And for what it's worth, many of the assistive technology "emulators" are worthless, to be honest. Especially on web apps. You get more mileage out of downloading the demo versions of JAWS and Window-Eyes, which are free, and give you 30-40 minutes of time to test your stuff out. > From: Richard Dillman > > Im going to be building a few pages that might be accessed useing assistave > technology such as a text reader or suck straw. > > I would prefer to stay in CF7 (the clients arent ready for an upgrade yet) > > What is everyones experiance with the various autosuggests out there? I'm > not tied to any one Ajax implamentation yet, but will rapidly need to pick > one. With respect to sip-and-puff devices, onscreen keyboards and the like, autocomplete functionality itself is a big accessibility win, since it helps reduce the number of keystrokes necessary to complete a search. When it comes to screen reader interoperability, I would poke around Dojo and jQuery for an autocomplete that works well with them. Another option would be to use FlashAid to detect whether assistive technology is in use (since Flash has that capability) and disable your autocomplete if it interferes with the screen reader. http://osflash.org/flashaid Hope this helps, m ---- Matt May Accessibility Engineer Adobe Systems ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;192386516;25150098;k Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:302994 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
