4 AJAX accessibility tutorial
The aim of creating this tutorial is to demonstrate accessible techniques with AJAX. Based upon an understanding of a disabled user I would like to outline what is an acceptable use of accessibility and any assumptions that it is based upon. My main assumption is that a visually impaired user will have one of the following settings-: If the user is running an up to date version of a screen reader they are likely to have JavaScript enabled, otherwise JavaScript will be disabled. A screen reader such as
“JAWS (version 5.0 or greater) will work correctly with JavaScript if: The scripts are activated by clicking a link or clickable item and the script dynamically updates the HTML source; the scripts do not update the page without user intervention.”(Freedom Scientific, 2003).
This is important to understand as simply implementing a no script alternative could still leave some users who have JavaScript enabled stranded on the site not knowing what has been updated on the page.