Access Matters

The post just previous to this one is dated Jan 22. What you don’t see is “2007.” That’s right 15 months ago. What happened to cause blogging to subside?

In January 2007, I changed jobs. No, it was not to a different employer, but my sixth or seventh unique job at the same employer, IBM. While I hade been doing accessibility work for a number of years, it was a secondary part of my work. That changed in January 2007 when I moved to IBM’s Human Ability and Accessibility Center.

Hurray! Full time accessibility work.

Well, … yes and no. There are pros and cons to everything. On the plus side, my primary work was assisting our Human Resources division with improving the accessibility characteristics of the applications they sponsor. Many are custom built by outside firms with specific areas of expertise (investment counseling, health care services, career guidance, etc.), and all of these applications are used on our intranet by upwards of 380,000 IBM employees. That audience has the typcical distribution of disabilities, and making these applications fully accessible was both very important and highly appreciated. That part of the job was very satisfying.

On the other hand, I had been eligible for retirement for many years already, and the lure of other activites was growing stronger day by day. Travel, visiting grandchildren, woodworking, boat building, and various forms of artwork were all singing their siren songs.

I gave into the temptations and retired from IBM at the end of 2007, after 41 years of amazing technological progress. Accessibility is still a very strong interest, but not likely one that will be associated with “employment” any time soon. Four months into it, I find that retirement suits me well. — April 2008

This posting ends up being like previous quiz questions, but I’m dropping the old numbering sheme (related to WCAG principles) and the multiple choice answers as well. New year, new topics, time to move on.

I want to ask about a proposed technique, but first the set up.

A short while ago, Gez Lemon and Steve Faulkner published a very good article about how screen readers behave and some ideas on Making Ajax Work with Screen Readers. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s well worth the read. … Now, I’ll wait.

So, they’re back again with another. This time, they’re trying to lessen the burden on the visitors who use screen readers. Why put the onus on them to constantly shift modes if there’s something programatic that can be done? In Improving Ajax applications for JAWS users, Gez and Steve reveal a technique they have found which forces JAWS 7.1 to update its virtual buffer without user intervention.

I should trust that they are right in saying it’s new to JAWS and probably does little for other assistive technology products. Yet, as much trust and resect I have for these guys, you never know when a JAWS competitor might implement the same trigger. Plus, I’m curious to actually try it with a variety of assistive technology and browsers, more than I have at my own disposal.

That’s where you come in. I have two very simple test cases for you to try. The first is as simple an AJAX application as one can write. (Actually, I liberated it from Brothercake’s Sitepoint article AJAX and Screenreaders: When can it work?) The test case has one link which does one AJAX call and updates a paragraph. You can’t make one any simpler. The second test case simply extends the first with Gez and Steve’s updateBuffer technique. Go give each of them a quick try with whatever array of assistive technologies and browsers you have. Tell us how they behave.

• Simple AJAX Test Case 1
• Simple AJAX Test Case 1a

This test builds upon Simple AJAX Test #1 by extending it with a “hacK” to better support screen readers. It uses Gez Lemon and Steve Faulkner’s updateBuffer technique as published in their article “Improving AJAX applications for JAWS users.” Is it only for JAWS, or will it make a difference for others too?

This link is the trigger.

This paragraph will update with the response

What happens in your screen reader? Does it update and speak the response with no problems, or do you have to do something special to hear the response? Important: How does it compare with the behavior of Simple AJAX Test #1? When leaving a comment, please tell us which screen reader and browser you are using. Remember to include version numbers.

This is an incredibly simple AJAX test case. The link triggers an XMLHttpRequest which fetches a simple line of text from the server and updates this page.

This link is the trigger.

This paragraph will update with the response.

What happens in your screen reader? Does it update and speak the response with no problems, or do you have to do something special to hear the response? When leaving a comment, please tell us which screen reader and browser you are using. Remember to include version numbers.

Someone of apparent good intentions tried to improve Firefox’s handling of access keys. FF 2 now wants you to add a ’shift’ key to any access key. On the surface, it sounds reasonable. The well intentioned programmer probably didn’t know about the UK recommendations for common access keys which includes almost all numerics, or how many sites are actually using numeric access keys.

This site uses numeric access keys, and I don’t care much about it being broken. I do care about our intranet, serving 300,000 being broken.

If you care, tell the developers. Vote for bug 357101.

Yes, I know Gez Lemon also wrote about it.