The 2534 Dorothy Harris blog…

If you turn off js you will limit keyboard navigation and visually impared users are people that really make use of improved keyboard navigation.

That entirely depends on context and how the “thing” was built. I say “thing” because interacting with an application will be entirely different than interacting with a page, for example, that shows and hides content using DOM Scripting.

The tree example you mention is a good example, in theory. It might still be a situation where a user of some older screen reader “insert version here” might not handle that interaction properly, and if so, if we’ve built things “correctly” even with JS off, that tree example might be less than optimally usable, but better than not being able to interact with it at all.

Believe me - as a member of both the DOM Scripting Task Force, and the Accessibility/Assistive Devices Task Force - I want nothing more than to move this stuff forward so that we can use modern scripting techniques along side assistive tech in a complementary way, rather than in a limiting way.

Take a tree as a good example. With scripting enabled you can allow the user to navigate using the arrow keys and you can make the tree have one tab index, instead of each item having its own entry in the focus chain.

There are currently three ways to go here:

1. Shut out visually impared people. (Is this what Derek Featherstone is suggesting?)

No, actually, that is most definitely not what I was suggesting. To provide some context, I was actually making the following points:

1. Screen reader software is getting better in its support for scripting
2. Where screen reader software fails (for example, in certain AJAXian techniques), if we’ve built things “correctly” using progressive enhancement, graceful degradation and unobtrusive scripting, we should be able to tell screen readers users to turn JS off so that they actually get a better experience.
3. Turning JS off may be more important for people using older versions of screen reader software.

That’s what I was suggesting - certainly not suggesting that they be shut out, in any way shape or form.

Hope that clarifies…

http://www.mozilla.org/access/dhtml/