Accessible Web Applications Using AJAX

IBM Just donated DHTML to the Firefox team to make web pages narratable and text zoom integral according to the Internetnews.com article:

Richard Schwertfeger, a distinguished engineer at IBM, said the DHTML accessibility code will make Firefox 1.5 the first browser in the world to add these accessibility functions for visual- and motor-impaired Web surfers.

So it seems things are looking good for accessible web applications in the future... Or are they? Is AJAX the future of all web applications? Current quirks in major web browsers dispute the argument by making the develoment of AJAX applications for all browsers test-intensive. It is also a long way to go unless server load is a serious factor for a web site because of the huge amounts of traffic it receives. Exceptions like Flickr use AJAX as a neat and simple way to replace image captions on demand. Then again Flickr is huge.

Overall, the current consensus at Grow is that from an accessibility point of view AJAX has limitations even with some of the current work-arounds that offer non javascript reliant content for accessibility. From a cost point of view, for small installations it adds development overheads that most SMEs cannot afford for the expected return.

For the future, with the donation to the Mozilla Foundation by IBM and it's current on-going discussions with Apple and Microsoft to get adoption of the technology more widespread, things are looking good for accessible web applications using AJAX at some point. Let's hope its soon.

When quirks are addressed in future browser iterations then we will consider integrating the functionality in our AMOS products.

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